The old two-story east side grade school was demolished this summer. It was located on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Bay Street, where it was built in 1886. An identical west side school on Oak Street was built the same year; it is now the Christian Science church. By the 1910s the east side school’s layout provided rooms for 1st and 2nd grades downstairs and 3rd and 4th upstairs, according to Lester Barter, born in 1906. I assume it was shut and sold when the consolidated elementary school on the meadow was built in the 1970s. I recall an interior decorating business in the 1886 school after consolidation.

The historical society has no photo of the old east side school showing the whole building when it served as a school or after. We have a few close-ups of children lined up by a section of the front, but no photo shows more than a few clapboards and a window or a door. If anyone has a photo of the building, we’d love to borrow it to scan for the society; or you could send us a scan (brhs@gwi.net). Please call 633-0820 or come to the society at 72 Oak Street in Boothbay Harbor on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. if you can help or provide more info about the school. If you want to talk to me in person, Saturday is best.