WATERFORD – It’s a big, old barn, maybe as old as 200 years, and its owners want to prove that it’s worthy enough to put on the National Register of Historic Places.
What is now the petting zoo for Waterford World’s Fair was once a barn for horses and cattle, and Rhonda Haney, the fair secretary, said she would like to see horses there again.
But the floor is so soft that Haney said it’s possible a heavy horse would fall through to the former stalls underneath.
“We’re trying to get it on the historic register and apply for grant money to bring it back to where it needs to be,” Haney said Friday.
Anyone with information on the structure is invited to contact her, because the more information that can be provided in the application, the better. And so far, this information has been scarce.
“The historic society has nothing on it,” Haney said. “There are still some missing links.”
What she knows so far is that it is a colonial barn and was probably built in the early 1800s on the Warren farm on Green Road, where its foundation still might be. From there, it was disassembled, taken to the Winn Brown property on Route 35 and rebuilt.
Then, in the 1950s, Haney said Wilbur Button donated it to the fair association, and it was moved intact to its current location at the fairgrounds on Green Road.
Christie Mitchell, an architectural historian with the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, which reviews Maine applications for the national register, said the fair organizers must show that the barn says something about American history. The barn needs to have integrity of materials, setting, location and feeling, among other criteria, and provide clues to the past.
If a building has changed settings, and in the process gained significance, it can still be considered for the register. But, in general, buildings that have been moved are not eligible, Mitchell said.
Maine has 1,478 individual listings on the register, which includes listings that are a cluster of buildings or a district.
“We’re very careful to consider only those properties that can convey a sense of time and place that help us learn something about the past,” Mitchell said. “I probably get five to 10 applications a month.” She did not know how many applications are approved and how many rejected.
Waterford World’s Fair has been an annual town event for 150 years. Haney said it is primarily an agricultural event geared toward teaching children about farming. They learn how to make butter, spin wool and are allowed to pet rabbits, goats, chickens, miniature ponies, and other smaller animals in the barn.
“We want it to be a learning agricultural fair, to teach the kids where their stuff comes from rather than the grocery store,” Haney said.
The repairs to the barn will cost between $25,000 to $30,000, Haney said. Eventually, the fair would also like to have a farm museum on the second flood of the barn.
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