Once town centers of agriculture, these public spaces haven’t quite disappeared

By Elizabeth Walztoni, Bangor Daily News Staff

Last Saturday night, a rock band performed on the wooden stage of the Trenton Grange, built a century ago to host secret, ritual-based meetings for local farmers.

As in other small towns across Maine, the building is one of the only public meeting places in Trenton. But unlike some other towns, the Grange group here is still active and has swelled to 40 members after years spent struggling to stay open.

Peter Lazas, Grange Master for the Trenton group, said he and his wife like to dance — plus the hall may have the nicest dance floor in Hancock County — so their events focus on music.

They were partly inspired by the Lamoine Grange about 10 minutes away, which has restored its building and hosts an arts group.

The neighboring halls are two examples of local Granges that stay active by finding new roles as community centers, often without programs connected to their agricultural roots. They reckon with challenges faced by community groups across rural Maine as former farming areas change: aging membership, adapting to a less locally connected society and difficulty attracting new people. 

Many are making renewed recruitment efforts, with some success. Fifty new members joined in April, the state organization reported.

Originating in the state 150 years ago, Granges met to connect farmers, advocate for them and provide resources. Town-based Granges are mostly independent, but county, state, and national Granges connect them. 

About 90 Granges remain from 600 operating at their peak. In the early 20th century, Maine had more members per capita than any other state, upward of 55,000; membership is less than 3,000 now. Four to five Granges close here annually. 

“The question becomes, how do you maintain that as society and agriculture change?” said Walter Boomsma, communications director for the Maine State Grange and a member of the Guilford-based Valley Grange.

The answer likely won’t be easy to find, and will vary from town to town, he said.

Many members are in their 80s and 90s — at 77, Boomsma is one of the youngest in his Grange — and adapting to the future is in their hands.

He hopes the Grange will find a way to keep its heritage and meet changes. That heritage includes traditions and rituals adapted from secret societies like the Freemasons, initiated to protect farmers from outside threats, though some Granges no longer use them. In Trenton, Lazas said the rituals could drive people away.

His group isn’t alone in using Grange building architecture, which typically features stages and dining rooms, for a pivot to performing arts. The Dexter Grange has also become a community theater.

Others offer general programs. In Fairfield, the Victor Grange is a popular spot for local events along with Grange meetings. More than 6,000 people reportedly participated there in 2022-23.

Still others choose education, like Boomsma’s Valley Grange which provides dictionaries to local third-graders. There isn’t one farmer among the 24 members. 

But as interest in small farming has grown, especially in Maine, some think there’s an opportunity for revival, he said. In Blue Hill, the Halcyon Grange has thrived with a farmer focus over the past decade, offering commercial kitchen space alongside events.

Many young farmers currently find community elsewhere, like at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. That’s the case for Beth Schiller, owner of Dandelion Spring Farm in Bowdoinham. 

Three years ago, she opened The Hive on her farm, a building she describes as a modern Grange. It’s available for rent and hosts events including taco nights, drawing classes, mushroom walks and natural dye workshops. She briefly joined a midcoast Grange in her early 20s, a positive experience but one that wasn’t connected to agriculture.

“I knew of [the Grange] as part of agricultural communities in the past, and there’s part of me that really loves that former tradition and wants to bring it back,” Schiller said. “I’ve also watched and witnessed Grange buildings be dormant.”

Her goal is to connect nonfarmers to rural Maine, people like her customers in urban Portland. Schiller said she believes this can preserve farmland and attract the next generation to agricultural life.

“The Hive is a social, political and economic mission of mine, in a lead-from-behind kind of way,” she said.

Bowdoinham has a number of other thriving community centers, according to Schiller. 

That isn’t the case for many municipalities, and the upkeep of historic Grange buildings has often required fundraising in small communities. Otherwise, they might lose their community spaces.

The Kennebec County town of Fayette, for example, is home to Starling Hall, the first building constructed in Maine specifically as a Grange. 

The town accepted the site when the Grange disbanded, and since 2014, the Friends of Starling Hall nonprofit has raised funds to restore the building. 

“Fayette has lost that sense of community,” group treasurer Mike Carlson said. “The only focal point for community we have right now is the school, and if you don’t have school-age children, you aren’t part of that community.”

But the project, and the preservation group’s requests for town funding, has deeply divided Fayette in ways he thinks will linger for years. Some opponents believe the investment is too steep because future generations won’t use the hall. Carlson, who is also a selectman, anticipates an “exponential” growth in outside fundraising is needed.

It’s difficult to navigate, but as long as there is support within the Friends group, they will keep going. They see the building as important to reestablishing that sense of community.

Like for the group in Fayette, attachment to the local Grange hall is often strong even among nonmembers, according to Boomsma. The Fairview Grange in Smithfield has been brought back from the brink of closing twice by concerned residents.

For halls trying to stay open, such as Fairview, one of the biggest hurdles is membership. Younger people are interested, but often don’t have time to join, Boomsma said. They’re busy; they’re overworked; they’re shuttling their kids to sports practices.

That isn’t unique to the traditional Grange. At the modern Grange in Bowdoinham, Schiller’s main challenge is getting people to come to events.

To her, not having the time is a frame of mind, a habit of not prioritizing face-to-face community. People today might even have more time than the early Grangers traveling to meetings by horse, she said.  

Schiller and Boomsma see people who are hungry for connection and community amidst these challenges. 

The halls remain a place of opportunity for anyone who wants to make something happen in their community, Boomsma tells people.

“If you’ve got a passion, we’ve got a place,” he said.