FARMINGTON — Rebuilding the former Fairbanks School and making it into a community meetinghouse has been a long-term project undertaken step by step or one brick at a time.

After the former school burned in 1998, members of the community of Fairbanks, a portion of Farmington, began the process of fundraising in 1999 and rebuilding in 2000, Cindy Kemble, Fairbanks School Neighborhood Association member, said.

Their goal was to re-create a building similar to the school remembered by alumni to be used as a community building.

Although the association continues to hold regular fundraisers to meet mortgage payments and pay for maintenance, one special fundraiser was started a few years ago to pay for a local mason adding brick fascia on the front of the building, she said.

For purchasing a brick at $5 each, the buyer could place a name on a proposed plaque either in memory or in honor of a person they chose, Kemble said.

Approximately 750 bricks were sold.

The plaque developed in to a picture plaque created by graphic artist Sarah Anzalone of Massachusetts. 

The group found it difficult to find someone to do the work but the piece is now finished and mounted in the hallway of the Fairbanks School Meetinghouse, Kemble said.

Along with the names is a 1920s photo of the neighborhood school, one taken during the rebuilding in 2003 and one showing the building nearly completed along with the title, “Rebuilding Fairbanks School, one brick at a time.”

Two alumni, Kenneth “Spider” Durrell and Eugene Ranger, took a look at the piece Monday. Both grew up in Fairbanks and continue to live there.

Durrell graduated from eighth grade at the school in 1943. There were four students in his class, he said. The school provided for grades K-8 at that time, he said. Four grades, K-3, in one room and four, 4-8, in the other.

He went on to Farmington High School, then located at the site of the former Ingalls School on High Street. Although he lived on Holley Road, he walked to high school every day, he said.

When Eugene Ranger attended Fairbanks School in the mid 1950s, there were only grades K-6, he said.

After looking at names posted in memory or in honor of, the men and Kemble reminisced about the school. It had two classrooms, a hallway and two coatrooms on the main floor, a kitchen in the basement. One class was taught by Mary Newell, the other by Ellen Howatt during their time there.

The school built in 1896, served neighborhood children for about 70 years and closed in the mid 1960s, she said.

It was used by the SAD 9 system for storage before being turned over to the town. MTE Inc. used the site until it burned in 1998.

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