The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1909-11-11
UNHEEDED OPPORTUNITIES
Vermont Is Failing in the Matter of
Drawing Vacation YisitOrs-A Few
of the Reasons.

vermont is raining In the matter OF
Drawing Vacation VisitOrs-A Few
of the Reasons.
The Boston Herald has the follow
ing article on the resources of Ver-
mont as a playground and laments
mat the lack of enterprise of citizens
of the State has left it a resort yet to
be discovered by the tourist:
Vermont is State which has yet to
be discovered by the summer resident.
To be sure, it has many thousands of
native folk who are proud of it's his
tory and loyal to it's interests. 1t has
other thousands who have left the
land of the Green Mountain and made
their homes in the great cities of the
country and in other States. But all
of these love the old home and the
traditions which they hold as one of
their most precious legacies.
Nevertheless Vermont awaits dis
covery. The tourist has yet to dis
cover the State and the summer
boarder and the capitalist. There is
an enormous amount of water power
in Vermont which some time will
bring fortune to many and occupation
to thousands; there are ideal oppor-
tunites for summer homes, with all
the advantages which city folks"
crave, to be had at small expense and
there are mountains and lakes,
waterfalls, and gorges, rivers, forests.
stretches of meadow almost every
variety of scenery, except the sub
lime and the terrible, and about these
scenes cluster a wealth of historical
| associations.
The Green Mountains are not the
Rockies and Lake Champlain and
Lake Dunmore are not Erie and Su-
perior. But the scenery is beautiful
and it is diversified. The range of
mountains makes the backbone of the
State; the Connecticut River, sinuous
and alluring, forms the eastern
boundary and Lake Champlain the
western. Memphramagog comes
across the boundary at the north. A
small State with these natural feat
ures is bound to be picturesque.
Vermonters feel that no State sur
passes their own in the glory Of its
history. They are proud of the fact
that their highest mountain bears the
name of the Lord Chief Justice of
England. They are proud of Benning-
ton and the story it brings to mind,
of the exploit at Ticonderoga, just
across the riverlike extension of Lake
Champlain, performed by Ethan AL
len, of the struggles over the Grants"
and the traditions that cluster about
the little cave above Lake Dunmore,
where the Green Mountain Boys found
a hiding place, of the incidents con-
nected with Brattleboro, Middlebury,
Montpelier, Burlington, st. Adams,
and score of little cities.
The State has no great cities. Bur-
the seat of the university. But in al
most any other State it would be
thought of as only small town. But
this fact should make the State all
the more attractive to the people who
wish in summer to escape the heat and
turmoil of the cities and reach quiet
retreat.
All New England Is practically a
summer resort and the one portion of
the region that has not yet come into
it's own is the State of Vermont. Such
world traveller and writer as the
late Julian Ralph long ago pro-
nounced the little village of Brandon
as beautiful village as he had ever
seen. Burlington has been praised
by a great number of the lovers OF
the beautiful. There is scarcely a
township in the State which does not
have some charm of special interest
to all who appreciate the picturesque
Only a very few of the towns in the
State have as yet taken advantage OF
the opportunity to build up perma-
nent prosperity by the methods which
have been found so profitable in other
picturesque parts of the New Eng
land States. There is a well known
J hotel at Woodstock, open all the year
: Manchester in the mountains has be-
! come very popular; Burlington has a
J considerable quota of tourists and
! summer stayers; at Hyde Manor there
is prosperous resort and there are
some others not so well known.
AS one considers these facts one
wonders why it is that this State has
not seized the opportunity. Open any
magazine in which advertisements
appear for summer homes and sum