A crisis at school pulls a whole community together.
A new BFA-Fairfax rises from the ashes.

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.

January Archives | January 18