POLAND – Bud Jordan graduated as the only eighth-grader in 1949 from the one-room District No. 22 grammar school. His father Samuel went there before him.

For the past two years, Jordan has spearheaded the effort to place the final touch on the restored historic building. Jordan, a Poland native, town selectman, and Poland Historical Society member, watched contractors Friday afternoon hoist the original school bell to the rooftop.

“I had the same teacher all those years, and my father did too,” said Jordan, remembering Alice Mitchell, who retired in 1954 when the last of the town’s 28 one-room schoolhouses closed. “And this was the only schoolhouse that had a bell on it.”

Jordan remembered Mrs. Mitchell teaching 30 to 35 students at once in that one room.

After the school closed and Poland Community School was built in 1954, the bell was cradled and displayed on the front lawn of the town’s new school.

Various community groups used the vacated District No. 22 school while it sat on its original site at Route 26 and White Oak Hill Road, said Barbara Strout, a longtime Poland resident who also witnessed the crowning touch Friday, along with her husband, Byron. At one time, the building was used as a town garage, Strout said.

Eric Brown of Brown’s Construction in Turner used an old photograph to reconstruct the bell tower that houses the original school bell.

“I guess that picture was from the 1800s, and we made it from the picture,” said Brown. “We had to draw up the design and figure out the support.”

Workers from R & R Construction Inc. of Lewiston volunteered to time, labor and equipment to lift the bell tower before heading home from the town’s public works project site down the road.

Gerry Bernatchez operated the boom truck while Troy Ellis and Jake Hackett secured the tower to the roof.

“It’s finally coming home,” said Strout, who noted that Jordan had worked the past two years to return the bell to its original spot. “We’ve been picking away at restoring this building for about 20 years. It’s really cool that the final step is done.”

Poland Spring Bottling Company has contributed to the entire restoration project, Jordan said.

Built in 1848, the schoolhouse was the only building that survived what is known as the Poland Corner Fire in the mid-1940s, Strout said. What used to be the woodshed and privy has been transformed into a more modern kitchen and bathroom with indoor plumbing.

“The town had originally applied for the school to be on the Maine Register of Historic Places,” Strout said. “But with the back addition and without the bell tower, it was too altered to qualify. “

Original student desks with writing arms and wall displays of 150 years of local photographs inside the building give an idea of the town’s history. Jordan, standing nearly as tall as his teacher, is pictured with his classmates.

The school’s chimney holds souvenirs from Poland’s more recent students, who helped work on the building as part of a home-school history project. Byron Strout showed a group of a dozen kids a few years ago how to mix mortar and lay brick. A penny from the year each student was born is placed throughout the chimney.