There is no better way to see America than on foot. And there is no better way to appreciate what you are looking at than with a walking tour. Whether you are preparing for a road trip or just out to look at your own town in a new way, a downloadable walking tour from walkthetown.com is ready to explore when you are.
Each walking tour describes historical and architectural landmarks and provides pictures to help out when those pesky street addresses are missing. Every tour also includes a quick primer on identifying architectural styles seen on American streets.
Rutland was ushered into existence in 1761 on the pen of Benning Wentworth, accidental colonial governor of New Hampshire. In the 1740s Wentworth had been involved in some messy financial dealings with Spain over some timber sales which resulted in his personal bankruptcy. Meanwhile his father was agitating for the creation of a separate governorship for New Hampshire, which had been an overlooked slice of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Attempting to winch himself out of his financial morass Wentworth went after the British government and rather than pay him real money they gave him the governorship of New Hampshire.
Wentworth spent a quarter century in the office doling out land grants in what is now southern Vermont to pad his wallet. There was not always clear title to those lands, however, as residents of the Province of New York would attest. No matter to Wentworth - he would be in the grave twenty years before those matters would be sorted out when Vermont became a state in 1791. One of those grants went to John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland. The good duke never saw his verdant new lands but flipped the property to settlers along Otter Creek. For the better part of three generations the Village of Rutland trundled along like most New England towns - there were merchants and craftsmen and farmers all around. Raising merino sheep to provide high-quality wool was a popular endeavor. In 1784 Rutland became the county seat for Rutland County so a courthouse was erected.
The course of Rutland’s future changed in the 1830s thanks to circumstances thousands of miles away. In Tuscany, Italy the easily extractable marble from the quarries of Carrara - the world’s best stone - were becoming exhausted and ever greater depths were required. The locals in Rutland had been using top quality marble for headstones from outcroppings in the ground for headstones ever since the first burials in town. Now the first commercial quarry was opened in Dorset, considered to be the first marble quarry in the United States.
In the 1850s the railroad arrived in Rutland, which immediately made the town the transportation center of southern Vermont. So much marble was shipped out of Rutland that after the Vermont Marble Company was formed in 1880 it became powerful enough to control the rights to all the marble in Vermont, Alaska and Colorado. About that time the town split off. West Rutland and Proctor, where the quarries were, became separate municipalities and Rutland incorporated as Vermont’s third city.
The men who ran the marble quarries filtered their profits through businesses in Rutland and beat a steady path into politics, further wielding influence for the city. Much of the downtown area reflects the wealth from that era around the turn of the 20th century and the entire area, including 108 buildings, has been registered as a National Historic District. Our explorations to see the Marble City will begin with a work from the architect most responsible for the Rutland cityscape. Spoiler alert: we’re going to see a lot of marble...
Each walking tour describes historical and architectural landmarks and provides pictures to help out when those pesky street addresses are missing. Every tour also includes a quick primer on identifying architectural styles seen on American streets.
Rutland was ushered into existence in 1761 on the pen of Benning Wentworth, accidental colonial governor of New Hampshire. In the 1740s Wentworth had been involved in some messy financial dealings with Spain over some timber sales which resulted in his personal bankruptcy. Meanwhile his father was agitating for the creation of a separate governorship for New Hampshire, which had been an overlooked slice of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Attempting to winch himself out of his financial morass Wentworth went after the British government and rather than pay him real money they gave him the governorship of New Hampshire.
Wentworth spent a quarter century in the office doling out land grants in what is now southern Vermont to pad his wallet. There was not always clear title to those lands, however, as residents of the Province of New York would attest. No matter to Wentworth - he would be in the grave twenty years before those matters would be sorted out when Vermont became a state in 1791. One of those grants went to John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland. The good duke never saw his verdant new lands but flipped the property to settlers along Otter Creek. For the better part of three generations the Village of Rutland trundled along like most New England towns - there were merchants and craftsmen and farmers all around. Raising merino sheep to provide high-quality wool was a popular endeavor. In 1784 Rutland became the county seat for Rutland County so a courthouse was erected.
The course of Rutland’s future changed in the 1830s thanks to circumstances thousands of miles away. In Tuscany, Italy the easily extractable marble from the quarries of Carrara - the world’s best stone - were becoming exhausted and ever greater depths were required. The locals in Rutland had been using top quality marble for headstones from outcroppings in the ground for headstones ever since the first burials in town. Now the first commercial quarry was opened in Dorset, considered to be the first marble quarry in the United States.
In the 1850s the railroad arrived in Rutland, which immediately made the town the transportation center of southern Vermont. So much marble was shipped out of Rutland that after the Vermont Marble Company was formed in 1880 it became powerful enough to control the rights to all the marble in Vermont, Alaska and Colorado. About that time the town split off. West Rutland and Proctor, where the quarries were, became separate municipalities and Rutland incorporated as Vermont’s third city.
The men who ran the marble quarries filtered their profits through businesses in Rutland and beat a steady path into politics, further wielding influence for the city. Much of the downtown area reflects the wealth from that era around the turn of the 20th century and the entire area, including 108 buildings, has been registered as a National Historic District. Our explorations to see the Marble City will begin with a work from the architect most responsible for the Rutland cityscape. Spoiler alert: we’re going to see a lot of marble...
