Bricks, mortar, history

The Dec. 29 aricle reporting Rite Aid’s imminent demolition of the Masonic Hall in Guilford left out a crucial element of the story: the building itself.

This is a tall, imposing brick structure standing at the center of the high ground of Guilford’s small downtown. It is the oldest brick building in Maine west of Bangor. On its Gothic facade are the words “Masonic Temple,” “Odd Fellows” and “Kineo Lodge.” The recent removal of its window panes and frames make it now a striking black-eyed skull in the snow.

It is a building from the era when our great-grandfathers stoned wells down 30 feet on their farms and built covered bridges and railroad beds with horses and derricks. Too bad our children and grandchildren won’t be able to see the strong, stern faces of their ancestors registered in the handsome pile of bricks, but only the “colonial” face conceived in an office in Pennsylvania.

There were several nearby sites available. Why didn’t Rite Aid choose one of them? Tom Staley Guilford