PORTER’S VILLAGE SCHOOL HOUSE SERVES A DIFFERENT PURPOSE IN TODAY’S WORLD

 

While visiting my dentist recently, I was thinking back to when I attended school in that building as a young child in 1943 – 1947.  Today it is the Ossipee River Dental office recently purchased by Dr. Christopher Parent at 38 Main St., Porter.  Although it looks pretty much the same outside, it looks very different inside due to the reconfiguration of the space as a dental office.                                               Jan Iler, PPHS Secretary

The new Village School 30 Main Street, Porter c. 1889

This building was built in 1889 as the Village School, replacing the original Village School building on School Street.  It cost nearly $3,000 to build and the Porter Town Report boasted it was the best in Oxford County.  It housed grades K (called Sub-primary) – 12 and continued as such until 1919 when overcrowding led to the building of Porter High School further down on Main Street.  In 1946 an arrangement was made so that the Parsonsfield students who lived in Kezar Falls Village and the students from Porter shared schools. Grades K – 3 were housed in the Village School Building, then called “Porter Primary”, and 4 – 7 went to the Milliken School on Federal Road on the Parsonsfield side of Kezar Falls Village.  Grade 8 students from Porter and Parsonsfield students that resided in the village went to Porter High School. By 1948 all the outlying schools in Porter were closed and students were transported to the village.

The Village School  c. 1905

The Village School/Porter Primary c. 1940’s

The Porter Primary school continued to be used until 1967 when the new Sacopee Valley High School was built.  At that time the grammar school students were split up and relocated between the red school house in So. Hiram, the old Porter High building and Milliken School until 1986 when the South Hiram Elementary (now Sacopee Elementary) was built. 

Porter Primary School – c. 1950’s & 1960’s

For a while the old village school building was used as a warehouse/research lab for ITT, Vulcan Electric.  It was purchased by Dr. J. Cons in 1985. He renovated it and established his dental office there.  When Dr. Cons gave up his practice it became the Sacopee Valley Family Dentistry office which continued until 2023 when Dr. Parent purchased the practice and renamed it “Ossipee Valley Dental.

Dr. Con’s Dental Office - 2001.

This is a great example of repurposing old historic buildings to better meet the needs in the community today.

 In the next few months, we will continue to look at other historic buildings that were an important part of our community’s past development.  Some have been repurposed while some have been demolished and have disappeared from the village scene.

THE WINTER OF 1969

This has been an unusual winter with little snow during the month of December.  However, this was not the case in 1969.   If you are over 54 you may remember that was the year New England experienced a severe winter storm that left Maine with snowfall amounts exceeding 20 inches in many places. This nor'easter was slow moving and became known as the 100 Hour Storm with the storm lasting for 3 days.  According to NOAA the storm of 1969 had some very impressive snowfall totals.  This storm was ranked Category 2 on the Regional Snowfall Index.  Cities and towns were not prepared for the storm.

  Transportation was almost at a complete halt for days and many streets were not plowed for a week.  The Regional Snowfall Index rates the storm of 1969 with more snow than the devastating snowstorm of March 1993.  This might surprise some people who live in Maine now who have never heard of this storm.  While the February 1969, snowstorm is not as well-known as the March 1993 “Storm of the Century,” it affected many more people with heavy snow (greater than 30”) than any other storm since 1900.  Normally, snowfall is measured in inches except at Mt Washington where the snow was measured in feet that year and received over 8 feet of snow.   How did this storm affect our small towns?  Here's the headline from the Portland Press Herald on March 6, 1969...

Snow Damage $100,000 at Kezar Falls Girls' Camp

In 1969 there were reports of towns in Maine receiving 30 inches of snow.   Officials were broadcasting warnings to camp owners and summer residents of the possibility of roofs collapsing from the weight of heavy snow.  That is exactly what happened when the roof of the main lodge at Camp Hiawatha located in the towns of Hiram and Porter collapsed.  The main lodge housed the dining room, the kitchen and a recreational area. Musical instruments and athletic equipment were also stored there.  The second floor had bedrooms, sewing and ironing rooms.  The basement containing showers and a laundry room suffered little damage.  The damage to the lodge was estimated at $100,000.  David Crowley, resident of Hiram, remembers the roof collapse. He had come to Maine to help shovel the roof at Camp Robin Hood while his father went to Camp Hiawatha to oversee a crew shoveling off the buildings.  They had started clearing the snow from one end of the building when they stopped for lunch.  Suddenly while they were having lunch the lodge roof collapsed.  The snow was about 4 feet deep and it was wet and heavy.  At the time of the roof collapse the camp was owned and operated by Andrew Friedman and his two sons Major and Drew. The lodge was reconstructed and opened on time in the summer of 1969 with 100 girls registered for camp.

The Friedman’s had purchased Camp Hiawatha from Abraham Mandelstam who had established the camp in 1920.  Mandy as he was known by friends and family was from New York City.  He owned and operated two camps in Maine; Camp Hiawatha on Stanley Pond and Camp Wigwam in Harrison. The camp is now operated as the Maine Teen Camp, is coed and serves teenagers from the U.S. and around the world. 

Above, the lodge building before the collapse in 1969 and then after.