Stowe

Chartered in 1763, Stowe sat quietly in the shadow of Mount Mansfield — Vermont's highest peak at 4,393 feet — until the twentieth century transformed it into the state's most famous ski town. The Civilian Conservation Corps cut the first ski trails on Mansfield in the 1930s, and the Mount Mansfield Ski Area opened in 1940. The von Trapp family, of Sound of Music fame, settled here in 1942 and established the Trapp Family Lodge, which remains a landmark.

Stowe's population of around 4,314 belies its outsized economic and cultural footprint. The town draws visitors year-round for skiing, hiking, mountain biking on the Stowe Recreation Path, and leaf-peeping season. The village center retains a classic New England feel, with a white-steepled church anchoring Main Street. Behind the tourism economy, Stowe operates as a Vermont town — selectboard governance, annual town meeting, and the same debates over budgets and development that every growing community faces. The tension between resort-town economics and small-town character is the ongoing story here.