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.