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'Waterbury' is a town in Washington County in central Vermont. It is also the name of a village within that town.

Contents

Economy

Industry

Tourism

History

Demographics

Education

Transportation

Notable residents

Footnotes

External links

Economy

Industry

Waterbury is the location of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, whose factory tours have become Vermont's most popular tourist attraction. Other local businesses include:

★ Cabot Creamery Annex

★ Cold Hollow Cider Mill http://www.coldhollow.com/

★ Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

★ Lake Champlain Chocolates
The town hosts a large complex of Vermont state government administrative offices.

Tourism

Waterbury is nicknamed "the Recreational Crossroads of Vermont" because of its closeness to the Sugarbush and Stowe skiing areas.

History

The location where Waterbury now lies was once the frontier between the Mahican and Pennacook people. European settlement of the area dates from 1763, when King George III granted a charter for land in the Winooski River Valley. James Marsh became the first permanent white settler in the region in 1783. Many of the early settlers came from Waterbury, Connecticut and named their new township in honor of the hometown.
The Central Vermont Railroad came to Waterbury in 1849.
The Village of Waterbury was incorporated in 1882 with a population of over 2000.
Like many New England towns, Waterbury's economy was based around the local river mill industry and the surrounding agricultural producers. The mills produced products such as lumber and finished wood products, wicker products, leather, starch, and alcohol. The agriculture was based on sheep through the 19th century but switched over to dairy farming by the 20th Century. Waterbury had a ski factory in the 1940s, The Derby Ball Company. In 2007, Rome Snowboards has their office in a building that Derby used to occupy.
In 1927, Waterbury, like many other Vermont communities, was devastated by flooding. Inscriptions on the sides of some buildings in Waterbury village purport to show where the level of the water rose during the 1927 flood. The village recovered and in 1938 the Little River Dam was built by the Army Corps of Engineers to control future flooding.

Demographics

The 2000 population of the village of Waterbury was 1706. Population of the town of Waterbury was 4915. The 2005 estimated populations were 1683 and 5211 respectively.The combined non-white population figures for the village and town are 46 and 108 respectively.

Education

Waterbury belongs to the Washington West Supervisory Union. Students attend Thatcher Brook Primary School for grades preschool and Kindergarten through 4th grade, Crossett Brook Middle School for grades 5-8, and Harwood Union High School for grades 9-12.

Transportation

Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides daily service to Waterbury, operating its Vermonter between St. Albans, VT and Washington, DC.
GMTA (Green Mountain Transit Agency) provides public transit bus services to Burlington, Montpelier, Morrisville and Stowe, VT.

Notable residents

★ William P. Dillingham, politician.

★ Wallace M. Greene, Commandant of the Marine Corps.

★ Henry Janes, physician and soldier (Chief Surgeon at Gettysburg), farmer, and humanitarian.^[1]

★ William Wells, merchant, Civil War general, Medal of Honor recipient

Footnotes

1. http://www.flowofhistory.org/lessons/cd_kit/files/appendices.pdf retrieved on May 6, 2007

External links

★ Waterbury Vermont Official Town Website

★ Historic Markers

★ GMTA

★ Waterbury Public Library