After the end of the McCollom Institute, its trustees treated the school's building and remaining investments as educational resources. In September 1906, Arthur Stearns, principal of a boys' school in New Jersey, reopened the McCollom Building as a boarding preparatory school for boys and girls called the Stearns School. However, from 1910 no further girls were accepted. Needing other buildings and owning a golf course, this was a success until the crash of 1929. It closed in 1937, and for ten years the McCollom Building saw little use. In 1947 it became an overflow for the Central District elementary school, with the upstairs hall used as a gym until 1961, when it was divided into classrooms. In 1990 the classes finished moving to a site on Harwood Road, and the McCollom trustees gave the building to the town to be used for offices. In 2010, it was housing the Mont Vernon police department and also the town clerk.
