Criterion A: Social History, Entertainment/Recreation,
Period of Significance: 1892-1975
Local Level of Significance
The former Franklin Grange #124 building is a vernacular two-story, gable front wood frame building that has been and continues to be an important social and community center in Woodstock, Oxford County, Maine. It was built in 1892 by members of the local Grange which had been established on March 11, 1875. They met in other buildings until they built the current Grange building. With a first-floor community room and kitchen and a large hall and stage on the second floor, this vernacular wood frame building provided a functional interior plan that supported Grange activities and other public events from musical and drama productions to school graduations. The local Grange disbanded in 2018, and the hall reverted to the Maine State Grange which sold it to the Town of Woodstock which in turn is working to reopen it as a community hall. The Grange, or Patrons of Husbandry, was an important social organization across the country throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. It places particular emphasis on agricultural education and progressive community and social activities. The influence of the Grange was widespread nationally and in Maine, with 588 individual Granges established between 1873 and 1985. While the Grange has a hierarchical social organization, the focus of the local Grange is community support and development. Franklin Grange #124 is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, at the local level of significance, for its role in the social and recreational history of Woodstock. The period of significance starts when the building was constructed in 1892 and ends fifty years before the present in 1975.