BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. – If you have lived in Bellows Falls for any significant amount of time, chances are you know where “The Stairs” are located. The 100-year-old cement stairs, 44 in all, which connect School Street with the downtown area, need repairs, and Rockingham Selectboard Member Elijah Zimmer, along with the Bellows Falls Downtown Development Alliance (BFDDA), are teaming up to do something about it as part of the “Keep BF Beautiful” efforts.
“‘Keep BF Beautiful’ meets May through December, to work on improvement projects downtown,” Zimmer said in a recent interview. “We are informally organized by the BFDDA Downtown Design Committee, and this is our third season, with dozens of volunteers putting in hundreds of hours to help.”
“We work on a wide variety of tasks on both public and private properties throughout the downtown area. We’ve painted many of the lampposts, railings, and fire hydrants in the community. We’ve also helped add and maintain new flowers and plants in the community, as well as decorating with evergreens and lights for the holidays.”
Zimmer had initially approached Town Manager Scott Pickup, as well as the town’s highway foreman, Andy Howarth, about the plans that were being created for the stairs by the Beautiful BF Committee.
“We had been thinking about improving the stairs for some time now,” Zimmer said. “And I got permission from the town manager and highway supervisor last winter to proceed with a volunteer improvement project. The stairs, as they exist now, were built at the beginning of the twentieth century, and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.”
“Keep BF Beautiful” and BFDDA have together raised $3,000 to put towards the restoration of the stairs, which will be used for a lime wash of the concrete steps, as well as replacing the concrete ball finials that sit atop the four pillars that mark the stairs.
“I started a fundraiser for BFDDA on Facebook with a goal of $2,500, and we raised about $3,000 in just 48 hours,” Zimmer added. “I’m now arranging with a professional mason to make and install the new finials, designed from historic photos of the stairs.”
While the bottom section of the stairs requires minimal cosmetic work, the upper section needs more serious restoration. According to an earlier agreement, the Town of Rockingham is responsible for the upkeep of sidewalks and stairs in both Bellows Falls and Saxtons River.