Sandgate

Granted by Benning Wentworth in 1761, Sandgate occupies the rugged western slopes of the Green Mountains in Bennington County. The town's terrain made settlement difficult — steep ridges and narrow valleys meant that farming here was always harder than in the broad bottomlands to the west. By the nineteenth century, many hill farms had been abandoned, and the forest reclaimed much of the cleared land.

Today Sandgate is home to roughly 390 people, making it one of the quieter corners of Bennington County. There is no village center in any conventional sense; residents are spread along dirt roads that climb through the hills. That isolation is part of the appeal. Town meeting day still brings the community together each March, a tradition that matters more in a place this small, where every voice carries real weight in decisions about roads, budgets, and the shared business of self-governance.