Fire permanently reshaped the village, starting with the 1883 destruction of the building on the site now occupied by the Pierce Building. The hotels were destroyed, mostly by fire, in 1967 and 1971. The Pierce Block was built in 1885 and is still being used for commercial purposes, one of the few business buildings to survive the multitude of fires that the village has experienced. In 1889, a waterworks was constructed using May Pond. Presumably sewage disposal was constructed concurrently. Water was needed to extinguish fires. Villagers had long been frustrated by their inability to quench fires with existing cisterns, which were replaced by fire hydrants.