Town trying to turn one-room school into museum

WEST BATH – Two years ago, selectmen threatened to burn down the town’s dilapidated one-room schoolhouse.

The building had fallen into disrepair by the early 1990s. When town officials determined restoration would cost $60,000, they announced plans to allow the town’s volunteer fire department to burn the building as a training exercise. The threat turned out to be a boon to the Littlefield School. Motivated residents lobbied the state and federal governments for help in protecting the 147-year-old school.

The Littlefield School is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The designation by the U.S. Department of the Interior protects the school from demolition – but the school faces more immediate challenges.

“The Littlefield School is very representative of Maine’s one-room schoolhouses from that period,” said Kirk F. Mohney, an architectural historian with the Maine Historic Preservation Commission. “These schoolhouses were the focus of local education from the 18th century through the early part of the 20th century.”

Supporters of Littlefield School are trying to raise money to turn the school into a museum. The building was also used as the headquarters of the West Bath Men’s Club until 1975. The school was closed in 1946 when the town voted to transfer students to schools in neighboring Bath.