WATERBORO — As longtime host to school plays, wedding receptions and turkey suppers, the Waterboro Grange hall has carved out its place in the town’s history. And though the grange itself has all but dissolved, members of the Waterborough Historical Society are hoping to restore the building back to the prominence it once enjoyed.

Grange members decided last summer to give up the building, which is located on West Road near the high school, and the transfer to the society was formalized in April.

“We couldn’t afford to do anything with it,” said Gloria Ross, master of Waterboro Grange No. 432. “That’s why we had to give it up.”

Ross has been a grange member for 60 years, following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother.

“When I took my degrees in 1950, it was held in the basement because the upstairs wasn’t finished,” she recalled.

The original building burnt in a 1911 fire and was rebuilt, but burnt again in a 1947 fire, said Jim Carll, historical society president. Because of the rebuilding, it is one of the newest grange halls in the state, he said.

Ross recalls maypole dances, dinners, variety shows, plays and dances at the hall.

“But that was years ago,” she said. “We had a good time here, but not lately.”

Over the years, Ross has seen grange membership dwindle from more than 200 members to only 15 today. Of those, most are Ross’ family, and the group hasn’t formally met for the past five years. Though her daughters have been involved with the grange, only one of her grandchildren is part of a grange, as a junior member.

“The world has changed,” she said. “Kids are not interested in it like we were.”

Statewide, only about 180 active grange halls remain, according to the Maine State Grange website, with about 8,000 members. Participation in the groups, which had their foundation in agricultural society, began to decline in the 1960s, not only in Waterboro, but statewide, according to the site.

A final stake was driven through the heart of the Waterboro Grange about three years ago, when vandals broke into the vacant building and wreaked havoc.

The kitchen cupboards that once held plates for the monthly turkey suppers are bare now, each plate having been smashed onto the concrete basement floor. White patch jobs now dot the walls throughout the upstairs hall where holes were punched through the walls and the antique mohair plush stage curtain from Sanford’s Goodall mills is torn to shreds.

“It was a mess,” said Ross.

An out-of-tune piano still sits in the corner, near a box full of items ruined by the vandals, and a sign announcing the cancellation of a turkey supper in 2001 sits dusty in a side room.

Though it needs a thorough cleaning and some paint, the building is structurally solid, said Carll, and worth the investment of a new roof, furnace and installation of a bathroom.

“It’s going to be Porta-Potty city for a while,” said Carll.

A committee is being formed, chaired by Dianne Daney Holden, to fundraise and seek grants for repairs to the hall, said Carll. An open house is planned Saturday, May 22 from 10 a.m.-noon.

“We were very in tune with that as being a community hall,” said Holden, whose parents were active grange members. She and her sister both took dance lessons at the hall, she said, and had their wedding receptions there.

“We are excited about the project,” said Holden. “The biggest goal is to get the community’s support and help.”

The society’s goal is to have the hall cleaned up and painted by October, she said.

The grange is the sixth building in town for which the society is taking responsibility ”“ their holdings include two museums, a sawmill, schoolhouse and blacksmith shop ”“ but it will be the only one that might bring in revenue, said Carll, if it can be rented out for functions. Despite its disrepair, the grange is still the biggest hall in town, he said.

“We hope to bring it back and use it for meetings, community gatherings and suppers,” said Carll.

The cedar shake hall is non-descript among the surrounding single-family homes, with its sign removed to protect it from vandals. But inside, the memories remain.

“There were a lot of first kisses behind that stage,” recalled David Benton, who was a grange member as a teenager. He said his last memories of the grange hall are from the wedding reception of famed Olympic snowboarder Seth Wescott’s parents, in the late 1960s.

“I think it will be a great benefit, especially to the historical society and the ones who want to bring it back,” said Benton. “There were good memories of Waterboro here. It’ll be fun to see it back usable before it gets in worse condition than it is now.”

— City Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 322 or kristenm@journaltribune.com.