Sagola Township officials have decided to put Randville Hall, W8555 M-95, up for sale after use of the former schoolhouse declined over the years. (Iron Mountain Daily News photo)

SAGOLA TOWNSHIP — A piece of Randville history is up for sale.

Sagola Township officials have decided to put Randville Hall, W8555 M-95, on the market after years of weighing the cost of maintaining the building versus actual public use.

The former schoolhouse, thought to be at least a century old, once was a polling site for the township but that ended in July 2020 due to having no internet access, a township official said.

Voting was shifted to the Sagola Community Building in Sagola, about 7 miles to the north.

Rental of the hall has become sporadic, the official said. It was booked only about two or three times in 2023, mostly for rummage sales. The township ended cleaning services in October and shut down the hall after no one signed up to use it during the winter months.

Keeping the 1,000-square-foot community building across from Randville Bar & Grill has been an almost annual debate for the township board.

But while past years have seen some support for retaining the property, this year had some residents conceding the time had come to let the hall go, the official said.

The building is not considered expensive to fund for heat and electricity, about $200 a month, officials said in 2021; no information was available on current costs.

But each year the amount of work needed at the hall has grown. In June, township Maintenance Director Don Begarowicz reported Lockhart Construction & Excavating of Channing had estimated it would cost $9,000 to replace the hall’s front entrance — its ramp for handicapped access can’t be used — and connected decking, plus $1,450 for the back steps. The basement needs work as well, the township official said.

In addition, the hall is on a small lot, bordered by M-95, CR 607 and railroad tracks, so right-of-way obligations would make it almost impossible to expand the building. The site also has the recently upgraded Thomas “Wildcat” King monument. King lived from 1830 to 1910 and was the last chief of the Badwater Band of Chippewa Indians.

An early Dickinson County pioneer, he delivered mail for the U.S. Postal Service on foot between Green Bay, Wis., and Copper Harbor at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, later operated a boarding house and ferry at the Twin Falls area of the Menominee River between what is now Breitung Township and Florence County in Wisconsin, worked for a time at the Groveland Mine in the Felch Township area and ultimately settled at his farm in Randville along the creek that now bears his name about a half-mile from the monument.

The monument, of course, would not be included in the purchase.

But the building itself does offer hardwood floors, a gallery kitchen, newer windows and roof, and a furnace only one year old, according to Leeds Real Estate, which has listed the property at $94,000.

The hall was still on the market as of Sunday.