NORWAY – Caldwell Jackson unscrewed the seat of a kitchen stool and peered inside with a flashlight. With the other workers, he debated the best way to transport it to its new home in Oxford.

The heat bored down. Jackson, vice president of the Oxford County Fairgrounds, pulled off his rubber gloves and looked around the vacant building.

The former Ledgewood Motel on Lower Main Street is being moved to the Oxford County Fairgrounds, which is farther down Route 26 and off Pottle Road. The effort is being coordinated by fairgrounds officials and is reliant on volunteer efforts and donations, said Suzanne Grover, fairgrounds president.

At the fairgrounds, the walls of the motel will be used as an undercover betting stall and race track viewing area.

The motel is being moved in three sections by flatbed truck, Grover said. The first section is already moved.

The physical move of the building should be complete by the end of next week, Grover said, although the new structure won’t be completed in time for this year’s county fair, Sept. 13 to 16.

For the workers, one of Monday’s missions was to figure out how to move the kitchen area so they could reassemble it. The motel’s kitchen, a 1950s-style diner with swivel-top stools and marble counters, will be used for food service at the fairgrounds.

While Grover and Jackson milled around the kitchen, Gretchen Neidlinger, curator of the Oxford County Fair Agricultural Society Museum, searched for artifacts to add to her collections. Items she had uncovered so far included room keys, matches, ashtrays, sign-in slips and a glass cabinet.

The motel was donated to the fair by its owner, Bob Bahre of Speedway Inc. in Oxford, who purchased the motel two weeks ago with the intention of demolishing or moving it, said Nancy Cushman of Speedway Inc. Then he was approached by fair officials.

Gay Cooper, the former owner of the motel, said it operated up until she sold it.

The motel had been in Cooper’s family since the 1950s. In 2004 it was damaged by a fire.

To demonstrate the building’s age, Jackson pointed to the building’s wooden walls.

“In 1950, that’s the kind of wood that would have been around,” he said.

Fair officials would not reveal how much the project will cost, though they said area businesses were donating services and offering discount rates.

Businesses aiding fair officials in the move include Copp & Sons building movers of Cumberland, which is trucking the motel to its destination just down the road; Scott Owens, an Oxford carpenter who is helping to reassemble the motel on the other end; Dave Everett, a Norway excavator who is helping to build the foundation, and Coleman Concrete of Oxford.