St. Johnsbury

Founded in 1786 and named by Ethan Allen for Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur (St. John), St. Johnsbury became the cultural and commercial capital of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. The Fairbanks family transformed the town in the nineteenth century — Thaddeus Fairbanks invented the platform scale here in 1830, and the E. & T. Fairbanks Company grew into a major manufacturer. The family's philanthropy gave St. Johnsbury its Athenaeum, a stunning Victorian library and art gallery that houses Albert Bierstadt's monumental painting "The Domes of the Yosemite," and the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, which still provides the regional weather forecast.

With a population around 7,603, St. Johnsbury serves as the shire town of Caledonia County and the economic hub of the Northeast Kingdom. The town straddles the Passumpsic and Moose rivers and sits at the junction of several major routes. Maple sugaring, forestry, and small manufacturing contribute to the local economy. The town uses a selectboard form of government, and residents gather for town meeting to debate the issues that matter to a community balancing its industrial heritage with the realities of a changing rural economy.