all researched places
The Latchis Main Theatre has stood as is since 1938 and is a member of the League of Historic American Theatres. Bedecked with Greek murals by the Hungarian-American painter Louis Jambor, swaddled in velvet curtains, and accented with a panoramic view of the Zodiac on the ceiling, this theatre has welcomed everything from the first run of The Wizard of Oz to livecast opera from the “Met.”
The Fountain Wells Fountain, one of Brattleboro’s best-loved landmarks, stand proudly on the northern edge of its downtown shopping district. Designed in 1890 by Brattleboro architect William Rutherford Mead (cousin to President Rutherford B. Hayes) and funded by William Henry Wells, Brattleboro native and new York businessman; this lovely granite fountain features two fierce lion head medallions on the north and south sides of a large basin. A pair of Corinthian columns supports the large lintel and electric lantern encased in graceful iron scrollwork. The Snow Angel Location Wells Fountain, also known as Wells Drinking Fountain, was built to mark the spot where Mead’s brother Larkin Mead, a nationally known sculptor, created an eight foot Snow Angel on New Year’s Eve 1856. The ephemeral angel caused such a sensation that Larkin later fashioned a marble replica that is currently on view in Brooks Memorial Library. The Move In 1986, the fountain was moved twenty feet […]
Since long before the advent of writing, right here in the Connecticut River Valley there have lived a people known as the Sokoki Abenaki (or, translated into English from the original Sokwakiak, “The People Who Separated”).
They are the original people of this place, and they are still here. Their native tongue, Aln8ba8dwaw8gan—the Western Abenaki language—is still extant, but greatly endangered.
Foremost among Brattleboro’s many striking geographical features is Mount Wantastiquet. Rising some 1300 feet above sea level in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, the mountain looms over downtown Brattleboro from across the Kwenitekw/Connecticut River—a long, lush shoulder glittering green in spring and summer, burning red, orange, and gold through autumn, and blanketed white in winter.
This week in Brattleboro History we are traveling back seventy years, to June 21, 1949. It was on this date that Brattleboro voted to build a new high school on the fairgrounds. The old high school was on Main Street and many thought it was inadequate. There was no gym or auditorium. The classrooms were crowded. Parking was challenging and the heating system did not function very well. As one letter writer to the Reformer wrote, “It has been thirty years since the residents of Brattleboro first started talking about the need of a new high school…In the meantime, the nature of the world and the town of Brattleboro has changed immeasurably. Certainly those changes have not decreased the need for the kind and size of building required to give this town, its children and their teachers, a decent break”. The Main Street high school was built in 1884. In 1949 the Reformer did a […]
Since 1903, the largest dairy breed organization in the world has been headquartered in downtown Brattleboro. Still going strong over 100 years after its founding, Holstein Association USA is the central information hub for dairy producers all across the country, maintaining the records for all ancestry, identity, ownership and performance information on more than 22 million Registered Holstein cattle—the United States’ most popular diary breed.
SINCE 1860 – The (Nearly) Forgotten Centreville is a nearly forgotten neighborhood located mainly on Western Avenue, the busy Vermont Deli thrives today in the heart of it. Extending along Western Avenue from approximately I-91, Exit 2 to the Creamery Bridge, it includes Guilford Street to Elm Corners (intersection of Maple St. and Guilford St.) and the western end of Williams Street. The first mention of Centreville in newspapers was an 1855 in an advertisement. Centreville was once such a thriving community on its own that it was labeled as prominently as both its neighbors to the east (Brattleboro) and west (West Brattleboro) as early as 1860. Above section taken from 1860 C. W. Grau Map, 1860. THRIVING COMMUNITY Centreville once had thriving industries which included several large mills, farms and of course Centreville Store. Reminiscences BHS Trustee Karen Davis recently reminisced with other board members of life growing up in Centreville and we’d like […]
On the east side of Main Street, near the junction of Main and Elliot, is an old brick building with the name “Union Block” highlighted in raised bricks at the top of the third floor. Between the second and third floors is a large bronze plaque, bearing the name “Amedeo de Angelis”, with the United States Seal depicted at each end of the plaque. Have you ever wondered how the building ended up with these two monikers?
You can learn about Brattleboro’s Den of Iniquity in this BHS podcast.
You can learn about the Rosetta Stone, Valley Fair, Civil War Camp, and BUHS #6 in this podcast.
You can learn about Blake Block – Brattleboro’s first mini-mall in this BHS podcast.
The Guilford Street Ski Tow opened to the public in January 1938. It operated on the Clark Farm in the area now occupied by Living Memorial Park. For its time, the tow was one of the most modern in New England. An all-day ticket cost 35 cents and a half-day ticket was 25 cents. In 1939 lights were added and the tow operated three nights each week. The ticket price for night skiing was 25 cents. The primary people who got together in the early summer of 1937 and formed a plan to build and operate a ski tow in Brattleboro were Robert Billings, Elliot Barber, Floyd Messenger and John Dunham. In 1937, on the Charles Clark Farm, where the Living Memorial Park is now located, construction of the “Guilford Street Ski Tow” was begun. The farm had been idle for a few years so there were no farming operations interrupted by the creation of […]