Skip to main content

Vermont 251 Club

Image
By
Entering the Town of Sunderland on Kelley Stand Rd.


Some of you may be aware of county collecting and the tracking site for counties, which is http://www.mob-rule.com/counties/. I tend to visit the county collecting site, and if I am in a new area, I will go bonkers for county collecting. This is because it encourages myself and others to visit places around the country that they would otherwise not have visited. Canada has counties as well, but I have not found a similar map for Canadian counties. However, being a resident of Albany, NY, and having clinched most counties in a radius of hundreds of miles (the island counties of Massachusetts mock me though), I needed something to whet my appetite.


Last year, I stumbled upon the Vermont 251 Club, while reading the yearly Vermont travel guide. To my understanding, the Vermont 251 Club was founded in the 1950s to encourage people to visit every city and town in the State of Vermont. There are 251 of these cities and towns. Some are easy to get to, since they are on major roads such as I-91, US Route 7 or VT Route 9. Others, are more difficult to get to such as Somerset, in southern Vermont, which involves driving on a rickety old forest road. Probably makes sense that Somerset's population is 5 (neighboring Glastenbury's population is 16).


There is an organization for the Vermont 251 Club, based in Vermont, naturally. Currently, I am not one of their members (I have not gotten around to paying dues), but I do keep track of what towns I've visited, and it does give me good reason to try to visit every town in Vermont. It seems to be a much easier goal to accomplish than visiting every town in my home and native state of New York. I currently have visited 219 of the 251 towns in Vermont, with the Northeast Kingdom being essentially what I am missing the most of. There are some other towns, mostly in the northern half of Vermont, that mock me as well.


Links:

vt251.com (Track your Vermont towns)

My own tally of Vermont towns

RedJar.org
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Is there a club like this in NY State?
9:30 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

By
In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l
3 comments
Read more

Ghost Town Tuesday; Mannfield, FL and the stairway to Hell

By
Back in 2015 I went searching the Lecanto Sand Hills for the original Citrus County Seat known as Mannfield.  Unlike Centrailia in Hernando County and Fivay in Pasco County I did find something worth seeing. Mannfield is located in the Lecanto Sand Hill section of Withlacoochee State Forest somewhat east of the intersection of Citrus County Route 491 and Mansfield Road. Mannfield was named after Austin Mann and founded in Hernando County in 1884 before Citrus County Split away.  In 1887 Citrus County was split from northern Hernando County while Pasco County was spun off to the south.  Mannfield was selected as the new Citrus County seat due to it being near the county geographic center.  Reportedly Mannfield had as many as 250 people when it was the County Seat.  The town included various businesses one might include at the time, even a sawmill which was common for the area.  In 1891 Citrus County voted to move it's seat to Inverness which set the stage for the decline of M
6 comments
Read more

The National Road - Pennsylvania - Great Crossings Bridge and Somerfield

By
West of Addison, US 40 crosses the Youghiogheny River at what once was the town of Somerfield.  When crossing the current modern two lane bridge, you many not realize that it is actually the third to cross the Yough at this site.  The first - a stone arch bridge - was known as the Great Crossings Bridge.  Built in 1818, this three arch bridge was part of the original National Road.  The name Great Crossings comes from the men who forded the Youghiogheny here - George Washington and George Braddock. (1)  If you cross the bridge at the right time, this historic bridge and what was once the town of Somerfield will appear out from underneath this massive man-made lake. Historical Postcard showing the 'Big Crossings' bridge and Somerfield.  Image submitted by Vince Ferrari. The Great Crossings Bridge was located in the town of Somerfield.  Somerfield, originally named Smythfield until 1827, would develop as a result of the National Road. (1)  Somerfield would go through va
Post a Comment
Read more