LEVERETT — Rehabilitation of the discontinued portion of Rattlesnake Gutter Road, which has become the town’s most popular place for walking, hiking and bicycling, and improving the historic Moore’s Corner Schoolhouse, are among more than $500,000 in requests for Community Preservation Act funding.

The two largest applications, with $230,000 for the road and $287,078 for the school building, have been submitted alongside six other requests, all of which will go through a review process by the Community Preservation Committee that began last Wednesday. That process will conclude with votes in March, when recommendations are brought to annual Town Meeting.

Being called the Rattlesnake Gutter Road Restoration and Improvement Project, the request for funding has support from town officials, who successfully appealed to the Franklin Council of Governments to discontinue that section of the gravel road. The money will go toward removing dead trees, upgrading drainage and rebuilding a stone retaining wall.

“This project seeks to restore and improve the section of Rattlesnake Gutter Road that is within the town-owned property known as the Rattlesnake Gutter Conservation Area,” reads the application written by Steve Weiss, a member of the Rattlesnake Gutter Trust, an organization that advocated for closing the road.

The application notes the county road was constructed in 1835, built on the northern side of the glacial ravine between Brushy Mountain and Cave Hill. Its stone wall was put in place with the use of oxen. The road remained fully open from Montague Road to North Leverett Road, except for during the winter months, until 2001, when sections of the stone wall, holding the road in place, collapsed during heavy rainstorms.

Support for the spending also comes from the Recreation Commission, Leverett Trails Committee, the trust and Police Chief Scott Minckler. There will be other efforts to get money for improvements, including through a community fund drive to be launched in the spring and the state’s MassTrails and Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness programs.

Schoolhouse, other asks

The other large request is for the 1810 Moore’s Corner Schoolhouse at 220 North Leverett Road, with money going toward the roof, windows, structural exterior woodwork and electrical.

Leverett Historical Society members Sara Robinson and Julie Shively wrote in the application that the town once had 10 schoolhouses, most of which are either lost or have been converted to homes, and the schoolhouse “provides a window into Leverett’s past educational practices and methodologies and also contains historical artifacts and documents that are important to the town’s legacy.”

The cost estimates for the work come from a report done by Olive Branch Consulting of Port Jefferson, New York.

The remaining spending asks are also historical related.

From the Leverett Historical Commission, $24,500 is sought for mapping the Graves Ironworks, a mill that once operated on North Leverett Road.

Susan Mareneck, who chairs the Leverett Historical Commission, wrote that the ironworks building made farm tools and parts for them. The building was once located downstream from the North Leverett Sawmill, which recently was awarded a nearly $700,000 grant from the National Park Service.

The hope is to make the ironworks site a focal point for an under construction Heritage Park & Nature Trail.

“In order to decipher the site so we can tell their story and appreciate the entrepreneurial innovation that made North Leverett a thriving village from the early to late 19th century, we need to have an archaeological map of the remains before significant changes occur,” Mareneck wrote.

The Select Board is asking for $8,000 for restoration of Howard & Davis scales cabinet that dates to 1848. Under the proposal, the cabinet would move from the basement of the Field Museum to Town Hall, with the equipment inside encased behind plexiglass so it can be on view.

The board is also asking for $6,160 for painting and refurbishing a 16-square-foot frame attached to the front of Town Hall, which had been used as a notice board for town meetings.

Positioned below a small sign indicating the Town Hall building dates to 1845, this cabinet, with protective glass on its front, features a place to post meeting notices in the upper right corner, while the remaining portions have a painting depicting a map of the town and the Leverett Congregational Church. The application notes it no longer functions as a meeting posting board but “the painting is now a unique and lovely welcome to the Town Hall.”

Danielle Barshak, who chairs the committee, said it’s also possible a request for CPA funds will be made by Amherst-Pelham Regional School officials for the upgraded track and field at the high school. A proposal had been made for off-cycle CPA funding for that project at a special Town Meeting this fall, similar to presentations brought in both Pelham and Shutesbury, but the committee took no action on that.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com