Bloomfield Town Hall

The Nulhegan Lumber Company began operations in Bloomfield in 1847. The company reorganized after the Civil War and rebuilt its sawmill around 1875. By then, the company employed 150 men in summer and 350 in winter to log and process timber harvested from the still-remote Nulhegan watershed. Bloomfield village, the heretofore quiet town center located at the confluence of the Connecticut and Nulhegan rivers, swelled to more than thirty-five dwellings and 200 residents. In 1891 the town purchased a prime lot at its main intersection and built this large wood-frame, two-story, gable-front town hall. Its Stick Style detailing, including stick gable screens, vergeboard, and crosshatch wall panels, is unusual for a town hall in Vermont. The work was considered complete in 1893, when the stage was installed in the main hall with its patterned tin walls and ceiling. In addition to municipal meetings, the hall was used for church services, boxing matches, and vaudeville acts that traveled to this isolated community. In 1900 a local women's group completed installation of a kitchen and dining hall in the cellar, and in 1903 the hall also became the high school, serving 47 students. Local employment and tax revenues evaporated in 1911 when Nulhegan Lumber finished logging and dismantled its mill. The community closed the high school and tuitioned its students to North Stratford across the Connecticut River. After decades of neglect, and with help from state grants, Bloomfield residents restored the town hall in the 1990s to its original vivid Victorian paint scheme.