FARMINGTON — A piece of local history is now gone after part of the Exhibition Hall at the fairgrounds was demolished Wednesday, Aug. 10.

“It’s a shame to see it go,” fair employee Georgia Tolman said. “That section over there is nasty. That floor wasn’t safe.”

Some of the lumber was salvaged for use in other fair buildings, Tolman noted.

“It is a shame that it is going but it is too expensive to put it back together,” fair secretary Neal Yeaton said. “Since I have been involved we have replaced the sill twice.”

Yeaton estimated that section of the hall to be over 100 years old. For years Farmington Elks Lodge #2430 served meals in that space.

The weight from the stoves used by the Elks affected the floor, Yeaton said. Rainwater draining towards the building after Farmington redid High Street has been another issue, he noted.

“One year the town winged the snow banks back so far we had to push the building back and brace it,” Yeaton said. “We had Eugene Harris come up, use his ability to put it back.”

Tearing down that section of the building is only a month behind schedule, Yeaton said. “It gave us time to salvage some lumber,” he noted. “Some has already been used in the grandstand. Those real 2X4 inch beams came in really handy.”

Fair secretary Neal Yeaton looks through an opening in a section of the Exhibition Hall on the Farmington fairgrounds Wednesday morning, Aug. 10. The section was torn down later that morning after it was determined needed repairs would be too expensive. Pam Harnden/Livermore Falls Advertiser

The fair crew has had a good summer, has jacked up a couple of buildings and redone the sills in the treasurer’s office, Yeaton said. “We have got a bunch of painting we are trying to do,” he noted. “It has been too hot, there’s been no rain.”

“There we are,” Yeaton exclaimed once the building was flat. “Vendors wanted deeper spaces,” he said. “This will open that right up, provide the extra room.”

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