A historic Bucksport firehouse on land that has been owned by the town for more than 140 years is for sale.
The 0.07-acre parcel downtown at 124 School St., which comes with an old engine house, is one of four properties Bucksport aims to sell in the coming weeks.
The building was most recently used for storing old fire equipment, some of it antique, according to officials. Items have since been moved and the building is vacant.
Bucksport is selling some municipal properties as part of efforts to slim its budget and manage property tax increases after spending down savings that for years cushioned it from the 2014 closure of the Verso paper mill. Councilors have also recently advanced changes to the town’s staffing models, recreation program, transfer station and funding provided to community and social agencies.
The town acquired the School Street land around 1883 from the Dodge family, according to Rich Rotella, its community and economic development director.
John Dodge sold land on School Street to the inhabitants of Bucksport for $400 that year, reserving the right to live onsite during his lifetime, according to a document in the Hancock County Registry of Deeds.
A fire station has been onsite for at least 115 years: fire insurance maps from 1911 list downtown stations on School Street, Elm Street and Franklin Street. Little other information is known about the property’s history, Rotella said in March.
Bucksport’s fire department is currently housed at the town’s public safety building on Franklin St., which was built in 1967 on the site of an older firehouse, according to Bangor Daily News archives.
The minimum bid for the School Street station is $42,390 with a 10% deposit of $4,239.
Other properties out for bid are 0 Mechanic St. for a minimum of $21,890, 0 Nicholson Avenue Extension for $15,870 and 0 Pond St. for $22,770, all with 10% deposits required. The School Street property is the only one that comes with a building.
Bucksport recently considered selling other properties, including the Duck Cove Schoolhouse on State Route 46, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and land on Upper Long Pond Road that made headlines in 2012 when suspicions of a historic cemetery onsite disrupted the local rod and gun club’s plans to build a shooting range there.
That land would likely be subdivided before any sale because part of it was once used for processing sludge that could have contained PFAS chemicals, according to Rotella.
Questions later arose around ownership of the schoolhouse and the former sludge activity on the other site, according to town officials.
Sealed physical bids for the current properties are due to the town office by 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 21 and will be opened publicly 15 minutes later.
