FARMINGTON – The Little Red Schoolhouse on the corner of Red Schoolhouse Road and Route 4 may be ready to leave the site where it has stood for 150 years.
The Franklin County Agricultural Society, which runs the Farmington Fair, agreed to finance a move across town to the Farmington Fairgrounds.
The site transfer cannot take place until the building is deeded over to the Farmington and Wilton historical societies by landowner Interstate Brands Corp.
IBC representatives have agreed to do that, says Wilton Historical Society President Warren Rollins. The problem is that the business is in chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
Fairgrounds committee members, Agricultural Society representatives, members of both historical societies, and the little red building itself, can only wait for the go-ahead from IBC, said Rollins.
The schoolhouse was apparently built in the early to mid-1850s.
It’s served as a museum, a warehouse, and an office for the Chamber of Commerce after being abandoned as an educational facility in the early 1900s. Now it sits, rather forlorn and unappreciated, on a parcel of land owned by Interstate Brands Corp., a Kansas-based company that bought out JJ Nissen company, onetime owner of the land.
According to Rollins, members of the Wilton and Farmington societies decided a few years ago that since the two groups were officially responsible for the building – though no one was sure who, exactly, owned it – they should do something to make it a bigger part of the community again.
After months of sifting through paperwork, historical society members figured out the building officially belongs to IBC, the owner of the land. The Farmington Historical Society owns the school bell, and the contents, such as they are, of the schoolhouse.
After months of written communication, John Knight, Wilton society secretary, received word from IBC representatives the company was willing to sell the schoolhouse to the historical groups for nearly free and allow the building to be removed to the location of the societies’ choice.
When the Farmington Fair Committee expressed interest in housing the schoolhouse permanently on the Franklin County Fairgrounds, Knight said Friday, society members were elated. The Franklin County Agricultural Society, which operates the annual fair, offered to fund the move, expected to cost more than $20,000.
Rupert Pratt, the chairman of the agricultural society’s board, said “we have allotted the money, but we’re hoping for some outside donations to help, because this (move) will dig into our funds pretty hard.”
He said Friday the fair committee expects the schoolhouse will “be a good addition to the fairgrounds as a museum-type piece. It will be a complete schoolhouse, with the school desks and everything inside.”
Some research is being done into how to move the building. Power lines will need to be moved, he said, as will telephone lines. But for the time being, the future of the Red Schoolhouse is still in limbo.
“Nobody knows for sure” when moving day will come, Pratt said, “because (IBC is) in chapter 11 bankruptcy.”
“It’s looking like it will be fairly soon,” Pratt said.
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