HARTFORD — The selectboard wants to get the one-room Union School House on the Maine or National Register of Historic Places and is asking for the public’s help in doing so.

Selectmen Chair Lee Holman said Monday the board wants to form an ad hoc committee to go through the application process, with the next deadline fast approaching on Friday, May 1. The historic building is located on Church Street, kitty-corner from Hartford Community Church. The church leases the school from the town for $1 and runs its clothing closet from it.

“We accepted the school house because the historical and improvement society that owned it was disbanding and handed it to us on a silver platter,” Holman said.

The society dissolved in October 2012, according to the 2013 Hartford Town Report.

There was a snafu this year when the town went to get the chimney cleaned and realized it was not lined and therefore couldn’t be used, Holman said. An electric heater, followed by a kerosene heater, was used to heat the building, which isn’t up to code.

“The town is getting briefed on what we need to do to improve this building,” Holman said. “What it came down to they couldn’t open in the spring unless they put in lighted exit signs.”

If the building is placed on a historic register then the lighted exit signs wouldn’t be needed, she added.

An informal tour of the building on Tuesday revealed chalkboards still intact on the front wall. Desks with attached seats are being used as tables to hold the clothing. The only other rooms in the building are the girls’ and boys’ bathrooms and there are two front doors to the school — one for girls and one for boys.

Hartford historian Lorraine Parsons searched her collection of books and town reports and registers to dig up a little bit of information on the school. It was built in 1899 and closed its doors as a school in 1952, according to “Hartford in Pictures,” which was published in 1984.

The town voted to build a new school, described as “a typical rural one-room school,” in 1899 for a total cost of $686.11, according to a thesis penned by Elizabeth Marston on early history of the town. The schools were referred to as districts at the time and the Union School District replaced the Richardson, Stetson and Chickering districts.

“It was one of the many school houses in town because all of the school houses were located where all the kids could walk to them,” Holman said. “There was one on my road. Every few miles there was a school house.”

In fact, there were 14 complete districts and two joint districts in town, according to the 1905 town census. The 1949 Directory of Oxford County penned by Winnie Robinson three years before the school closed shows the superintendent at the time was Harry Foster and the school had one teacher, who wasn’t named.

Anyone interested in joining the selectboard in its efforts can contact Holman at 388-2510 or [email protected] or call the Town Office at 388-2674.

[email protected]