Bellows Free Academy in Fairfax was destroyed by fire on this day in 1941. Today’s BFA stands on the same site.

The loss of the original school was a sad day for Fairfax citizens, who regarded BFA as the crowning jewel of their community. The distinctive, four-story, brick building was completely gutted. A likely cause of the fire was a concentration of coal gas in the ventilation system.

Makeshift classrooms were hastily organized, using private homes and the town’s churches. By 1942, construction of a new school building was finished, and the new building contained many of the old bricks salvaged from the orginal BFA.

Photo courtesy Fairfax, Vermont by the Fairfax Bicentennial Committee.