Criterion A: Social History, Entertainment/Recreation, Politics/Government
Period of Significance: 1904-1974
Local Level of Significance
Webb River Grange is a vernacular building that has been and continues to be an important social and community center in Carthage, Franklin County, Maine. It was built in 1904 by members of the Webb River Grange #108, established 1876. They met in other buildings until 1904 when 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 town meetings to school graduations. The local grange disbanded in 2003 and the hall reverted to the Maine State Grange which sold it to the Town of Carthage which continues to operate 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. 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. Webb River Grange is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, at the local level of significance, for its role in the social, recreational, and governmental history of Carthage. The period of significance starts when the building was constructed in 1904 and ends fifty years before the present in 1974.