You will enjoy this. The Phoenix of May 16, 1890 featured a story about a meeting held to discuss what is needed in Brattleboro. The following list was published as a record of the event. It isn’t often we get such a clear statement of desires from those who came before us.
Read on to see what they wanted. Some things came to pass, others faded away, and some are things we still talk about wanting today.
A Partial List of Needs
- A new opera house.
- A large and convenient boarding house.
- Court house for county and United States courts, and post office.
- Telegraph office on Main street.
- Home for aged people.
- Increase of population and wealth.
- Better railroad service:
a. filling up the station yard.
b. Removal of narrow gauge tracks to a more convenient and safe location
c. Better train service to and from Boston, and close connections at Millers Falls and Belchertown
d. Saturday afternoon train up and Sunday night train down.
e. Brattleboro should be a junction for competitive lines of road.
f. Mileage book should be interchangeable on all roads.
g. Within certain zones, on railroad lines, prices should be the same to all stations far and near, as on street railways.
h. Easier prices on local freight and passenger tariffs.
- A hospital for poor invalids, and sufferers from accident.
- Walnut street and Harris Place should be connected by a road on the river terrace.
- Carriage road up Wantastiquet.
- Tower on the mountain built of native stone.
- Diversified and small manufacturers, with a good class of help.
- Better means for small investments.
- Better fire alarm system.
- A Y.M.C.A. building, with conveniences for mechanical drawing, etc.
- An annex to the Industrial union for feeding the hungry tramp.
- Building up of our outlying country.
- Better railroad service to outer districts and other towns up the county.
- A more general esprit de corps.
- Summer hotel on Wantastiquet.
- Cable railroad up Wantastiquet.
- Facilities for pumping water up the mountain.
- A good history of the town.
- A separate High school building.
- Better system of road building.
- Better state railroad regulation.
- Station removed to the (west) side of track.
- A vagrant act to stop street loafing.
- Lightning express train to Boston.
- Extra police force on Main street.
- A choral union society of 50 voices.
- A good lecture system.
- A $50,000 institute for the general elevation of Brattleboro in social, intellectual and charitable work.
- A gymnasium for young ladies.
What A Difference 100 Years Makes
In 1890, we were contemplating things like a new opera house and a “lightning rail to Boston.” Today we’re wondering how much we can cut. Things have changed.