How the historic Whallonsburg Grange Hall continues to build community

Saved by volunteers in 2006, this iconic meeting place is now searching for its first full-time director

Photos from the late 19th century show the bustling community of Whallonsburg, home to 500 souls five miles from the shores of Lake Champlain. The community came together in 1915 to build itself a new Grange Hall, a rural hub society, commercialism and intellect — if the building resembled a barn, it’s because that’s what the agrarian community knew how to build.

One by one, the houses and businesses in those photos vanished through the years, but the Grange Hall remained, a roof over the heads of people who still felt enough gravitational community pull to gather on election days and to listen to learned speakers.

As these gatherings became less frequent, the hall limped along until 2006 when the artist Ted Cornell and a band of determined volunteers brought it back to life — and in many ways its original mission — just as it was on the precipice of being too far gone to save.

One of those volunteers, Mary-Nell Bockman, has served as part time manager of the Whallonsburg Grange, as it has become a regional draw for its concerts, movies and lyceums, and as it acquired the neighboring Whitcomb’s Garage for studio and craftmakers’ space.

Now, as Bockman prepares to exit stage left, the Grange is preparing for its next act, advertising for a full-time executive director to assure financial sustainability and cement in the good work of countless volunteer hours, readying the Grange for its next 100 years.

“The Grange has had a huge cultural impact for so little in the way of paid staff,” said Laurie House, outgoing board president.

It has also grown not so much from any great vision, but by allowing the community to define what was wanted and what was possible.

The National Grange was founded in 1867, and through the following century most every rural community had a Grange Hall, which served as a social hub and a political constituency for issues such as rural free mail delivery and better rates for shipping grain and produce by rail. 

The Whallonsburg Grange is no longer affiliated with the national organization, but memories of those days remain. “When we were renovating, so many people stopped by to tell us their stories,” Bockman said. The lyceum lecture series that was initiated 13 years ago was, as it turned out, not so different from community programs in the 19th century when groups would gather to discuss — some things never change — tariffs.

Rural life, she said, was more than farms and fields, it was intellectually stimulating as well.

The Whallonsburg Grange leadership, in its latest incarnation, is largely decentralized, its programming and artistic direction run through volunteer committees.

Incoming chair Kathryn Reinhardt said this system will continue, even with a paid ED. “We’re keeping all the committees connected and involved,” she said. 

But as the Grange has grown, so have the responsibilities. Along with the lectures, movies, plays, concerts, workshops and children’s activities, the space is rented out for community activities, and, next door, Whitcomb’s and accompanying greenspace is a lively gallery space, and hosts a blacksmith, potter and woodcrafters.

The art shows are not static — art shows frequently involve the artists, letting them connect with the community. Nor are they predictable: A teacher’s elaborate doodles are currently on display, and community members are sometimes challenged to bring in an item from their living rooms for display, along with a paragraph of what makes it significant.

“It’s a fun process,” Reinhardt said.

Grange board members also believe that the hall is more than any particular exhibit or show. As rural churches have closed, schools have consolidated and volunteer fire halls have struggled for membership, Adirondack gathering spaces are at a premium and ever more important for ensuring that community connections are not lost.

When the pandemic hit, leading to forced solitude, the Grange was in the early stages of renovating Whitcomb’s garage. The job site was one place people could still come together and work for the betterment of the community. “In some ways that’s what held us together during Covid,” Bockman said.

The Grange has about 50 active volunteers, and community buy-in from committed individuals is essential to success. Different people have stepped up with different skill sets, whether it’s curating a show, reimagining the Whitcomb’s space or having the foresight to fit the Grange with a commercial kitchen. Bockman said that with the right people it’s a model that can be duplicated, pointing to a new community center that opened out of an abandoned church near the northern boundary of the Adirondack Park.

The Grange has drawn people from a broad swath of the Eastern Adirondacks to its events, and astonished people who had left the community years ago and recently returned. At “indoor playground” events a number of years ago, Bockman said she recalled seeing all the little shoes lined up in the vestibule — and was recently hit with the realization that the owners of these shoes were now in high school. Perhaps they will be the next wave of Grange volunteers.

“In small ways, this is such a critical part of a community sustaining itself,” she said.