The days of the Samuel D. Hanson School in Buxton are slated to be part of the town’s bygone times.
The old, two-story landmark is scheduled to be demolished, and two groups that supported converting it into another use are dismayed.
“This is a loss for every citizen of Buxton,” said Jan Hill of Buxton, who is a member of Community Heritage Alliance of Rural Maine, which backed re-using the structure. “This building is not a liability, it’s an asset,” she said Tuesday.
The 85-year-old building that once served as Buxton’s high school sits amid a historic, rural area on Route 22 adjacent to the Buxton Center Elementary School, which opened in 2010.
The original Hanson School was built in 1913 but burned in March 1930, and town labor built a replacement that opened in December the same year. Hill said this week that Buxton borrowed $11,000 during the “height of the Great Depression” for the replacement Hanson School.
“It’s very well built,” she said.
The Hanson School appears to have new windows and siding. Brent Hill, Jan Hill’s husband who is also involved in the effort to reuse the school, said the building originally had wooden clapboards. He said later asphalt-type siding has been replaced with vinyl.
A brick gym annex was added to the school in 1952, and Jan Hill said a replacement gym would cost $2 million.
“We need another gym in Buxton,” she said.
But efforts to save the building have fallen short. The School Administrative District 6 board, having no need for the Hanson building and gym, has authorized leveling it. Destruction could begin immediately.
Hill, who is also president of the Buxton-Hollis Historical Society, said in a letter to the newspaper that the approximate cost of demolition is $170,000.
The Buxton-Hollis Historical Society and Community Heritage Alliance of Rural Maine led an effort to save the building. Susan Orfant Gillette, president of the alliance group, said it initially envisioned it becoming a community center for SAD 6.
“There’s not a lot for teenagers in this area” and senior citizens, Gillette said.
Four years ago, Buxton voters, by a slim nine votes, rejected a referendum that would have converted the old school to a community center. If the measure had passed, Buxton would have leased the building from the school district for $1 a year.
Jacob Stoddard of Buxton, vice chairman of the SAD 6 board of directors, said in an email Tuesday that the Hanson School is slated for demolition during the summer.
“We currently do not have an official project start date,” Stoddard said.
Two former students at the school reminisced outside the padlocked building on Tuesday. Roberta Ramsdell of Hollis, who grew up on Turkey Lane in Buxton, graduated high school from the Hanson School. Ramsdell recalled the interior as having tin walls and ceilings. She said the cafeteria was in the gym.
Nancy Pierce, librarian at the historical society’s museum in Bar Mills, was a junior high school student at Hanson. She recalled walking up and down the halls.
“The wonderful atmosphere that was in there,” Pierce said about what she remembered most.
Children last roamed its corridors five years ago. Stoddard said the district recently has utilized the building to house its maintenance and technology departments, as well as for storage. When Buxton Center Elementary School opened, the district decided not to reuse Hanson School for classes, Stoddard said.
“The board voted to demolish the building for a litany of reasons,” Stoddard said. “There are significant improvements that need to be made for the building to become code compliant. Upon further investigation, those improvements are much more significant than the district originally anticipated.”
Red notices posted June 23 on Hanson School entrances identify it as an “unsafe structure.”
But Hill said it’s a “wonderful building. Condemnation doesn’t pass the straight-face test.”
Stoddard said Code Enforcement Officer Fred Farnham has issued notice to the school district that it has 30 days to make “specified improvements to the building, or to have a detailed project plan for when these improvements will be made.”
“The aggregate cost of these improvements is in excess of $2 million, and the board does not feel that would be a prudent use of the district’s taxpayers’ hard-earned resources,” Stoddard said.
But according to figures provided by historical society vice president Marguerite Gardner of Hollis, the school district’s facilities information for Hanson in 2012 listed the cost to occupy the gym at $103,869 and the school, $25,586.
But, the Buxton selectmen, Stoddard said, have passed an executive order supporting Farnham’s actions, and Stoddard said the town has not voted to take the building back from the district.
As far as selling the Hanson School, Stoddard said there would be “difficulties with zoning, and prior contractual agreements.”
Apparently the school district leases the Hanson septic field from a private party, but Hill said in an email the family supports repurposing the school.
“Where the district has no foreseeable student use for S.D. Hanson, we are statutorily barred from leasing the building,” Stoddard said. “Our options are limited.”
The historical society successfully worked out a lease from the school district for the Bar Mills Elementary School and has transformed it into the society’s headquarters and museum. The society was instrumental in saving the old Hollis High School, which was sold to a private party.
But hopes for Hanson School have fallen through and Hill said its loss is sad. “We think it’s a huge mistake,” Hill said.
The Frank Jewett School, which is adjacent to Hanson, will stand. Stoddard said the Jewett School would be used to house alternative education for grades 7-12 next year and a special education program.
It’s unclear what legal ramifications might develop from razing Hanson School. According to a document provided by Gillette, Dr. Zenas Hanson in 1917 gave Buxton $5,000 to name the town’s high school in memory of his brother, Samuel D. Hanson.
He stipulated in an agreement with selectmen that if the school ceased to exist, Buxton would pay the money he donated to the Baptist Missionary Society of Maine.
The Samuel D. Hanson School and its gym annex, on right, will soon be history. The board of directors of School Administrative District 6 has authorized demolition of the landmark. Staff photo by Robert LowellSend questions/comments to the editors.
