Hi Guys!
I was hoping someone might be able to help me…
Does anyone know what buildings would exist in a present day small town in Vermont? I would assume a few small shops, wood or brick built in the 30’s or 40’s?
Thanks again!
Alex
Don’t know about Vermont, but a small town’s a small town? They look alot like this in Wisconsin:
Hope this helps.
Terry
Hey buddy.
From what I saw on my last trip up there, Main Street brick and mortar shops are alive and well. I do not recall passing through any town that was not as such. In fact, given an individual town’s size, there tended to be more local commercial presence than might have been expected. '30s to '40s construction sounds about right.
Thanks, I might have to steal a glance at a framed picture in english class of Stowe Vermont…
I’d assume there would probably be a church, several houses, and a bakery/cafe?
There has to be a McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell, they are everywhere today
Not really, driving along route 20 in New York State, there are only a few gas stations and super markets, with all the other buildings being wood or brick commercial stores from the 30’s…
Probably. I’ve had to figure out what to put in my towns in that general area too, except my decisions were based on what structure I had looked best there… [:-^]
If you’re modeling Albany, don’t forget the bordello![:D]
Lee
Study a map of Vermont, pick a bunch of small towns and then Google them.
Even the tiniest burg has its own web site these days and you’re bound to find enough pics amongst them to get a feel for what the typical small Vermont town looks like.
Small town off the prototype. Looks to be a bank and some small businesses housed in older buildings…
Similar picture showing a church in the background…
edit:
http://www.lightlink.com/sglap3/newhampshire/whitefieldb&mrll2.jpg
LOL, not the same state, but the same railroad! “oooooh nooooooooz, they iz everywherez!”
I don’t know whether you have checked an atlas of late but I think that Vermont borders Mass out in the boonies west of the Connecticut River. Why don’t you get off your duff some weekend, grab your camera, and take a two day trip up there and find out what small-town-Vermont looks like; you will be surprised to learn that there is some life in existence out there beyond 'The Yahd"!!!
Kinda hard to do that when you aren’t old enough to have a license…
On my birthday, my yearly present is to go railfanning Guilford Out in Western Mass…
Having been to Stowe, I can tell you that it is not tipical in Vt. There are a lot of hotels for tourists. Check out Barre or Montpelier. Also Google Barre & Chelsea RR, try Montpelier & Wells River RR. Both were basically the same RR except B & C is newer. The RR that runs there now is the Washington County RR, a division of Green Mountain/Vermont Railway. (Montpelier is the only state capitol without a McDonalds [(-D])
I found a few pictures of Hardwick Vt (fitctional branch runs south of Hardwick to Woodbury and ultimately South Woodbury) and it seems to be a fairly small town. Doesn’t one of the Barre & Chelsey 70 tonners still exist as a monument?
Sorry I can’t provide any photos, but the little town on my layout consists of a hotel, a Gulf gas station, a corner market, a bank, a dry goods store, a 24 hour cafe’/diner, a fire department with some old guys playing checkers inside, a school, a church with a grave yard, a saw mill, several houses scattered out here and there, a water tower, a small depot and rail yard with a switching tower and water tank. As for details, there’s a bunch of kids playing baseball in a vacant lot, a cop giving a speeder a ticket and a mountain lion sizing up a couple of deer in a valley below. You have to keep in mind though that this town is based on a small community of the mid 1950s. Someone once asked me why I didn’t put in a movie theater, doctors office, etc. I responded that they have to go to a bigger town for things like that… I am however considering adding a drive in theater one of these days.
Hope this helps a bit.
Tracklayer
I live in a small town and we have everything a large city would have but just on a smaller scale. We have churchs, banks, lots of mom and pop type shops like variety stores and antique stores, a taxi company, beer store, liquour store, a few large industrys and a few smaller ones, a few fast food restaurants but not all of them, gas stations, strip mall, medical center(no hospital), a couple car dealerships etc.
Looks like you answered your own question. Get on google.com or even google earth and research, research, research!
When it comes to the commercial buildings, think about current economics and what businesses would still thrive and which would have gone under. I’ve only driven through Vermont once so I can’t speak about that situation, but I live just outside Utica, OH which is about a 45 minute drive northeast of Columbus. The small theater, like most small theaters everywhere has long been shut down, as megaplexes have taken over the industry. The nearest megaplex is in Mt. Vernon, about 12 miles to the north. There is a Ben Franklin store that is doing well as it offers a little bit of everything and is more convenient than driving to the Wal-Mart in Mt. Vernon if you only need one or two things. There is a small grocery store a drug store, a hardware store, a couple of schools, a library branch and a few churches. There are two family type restaurants that have a loyal following and a number of pizza parlors which should do well anywhere. We are too small to support a hotel or even a small motel. Many of the commercial buildings on Main St. are either vacant or have tenants who are trying to make a go of it with some niche business, like a used book store, antique store or flea market for instance. I have seen a number of these come and go in the 7 years I have lived here. We do have a rail line through town, an old B&O line now run by the Ohio Central as a branch line to serve the grain elevators in Mt. Vernon. Several years ago the track was abandoned north of Mt. Vernon and there was talk of abandoning the entire branch but apparently some state money saved it. The small depot still stands but I believe it is vacant at this time. There is one small industrial plant at the edge of town and I forget right now what it is they produce, I just know they get out at 3:30 and I always want to avoid going past it at that time as traffic backs up at one of our three traffic lights. Just south of town, there is the Velvet Ic
Rural New England is very charming, in no small part because it’s one of the few remaining parts of the United States that still retains its “local” sense of archicture and personality. Although the larger towns (like Manchester, NH) are seeing many of the typical big chain stores and restaurants, the “boonies” are still, for the most part, blissfully free of the “homogenization” of the American landscape that is eating away at the rest of the country like a cancer.
Here in North Carolina that homogenization is running in high gear. For example; driving to a friends wedding from Apex, NC last summer, I got on US64 at NC55, with a shopping center made up on Lowe’s, Chik-Fil-A, Target, etc. After a good bit of driving, I got off I40/85 near Burlington, NC. What did I see? Loew’s, Chik-Fil-A, and Target. C’mon!
Contrast that with a trip I took last summer to a weather conference in Waterville Valley, NH… What a beautiful place! Even the little towns you drive through on the way up… You see a sense of civic pride and history that no Wal-mart can erase.
I love New England. It feels like the way America used to be!