In 1997, Portland’s mayor-elect Ethan Strimling took the helm of Portland West, a nonprofit organization today known as LearningWorks. In this 1998 file photo, Strimling stands in front of a building renovation on Portland’s Park Avenue where his organization was offering vocational training through it’s “Youth Build” program.

Seventeen years later, as seen in the Tuesday, November 3 photograph at left, Strimling celebrated his election to become Portland’s next mayor.

The Portland Room of the Portland Public Library is in the process of organizing and conserving the archival collection of original Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Telegram and Evening Express photographic negatives — a major collection that spans from 1937 to 2005. Find more photos at www.pressherald.com/flashback/.