The building began life as a one-room schoolhouse rolled into the hamlet on logs in 1875.

In 2000 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and the town began to seriously consider renovating and expanding it.

Some residents did not believe that was necessary, and helped defeat a $1.5 million expansion plan in a March 2001 vote.

[2] Three years later, a new town supervisor, Carl Zatz, initiated a project to renovate and expand the building.

It caused some controversy when other town officials and residents publicly expressed doubts that the work could be done for the minimal costs Zatz claimed it would.