Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
New Englanders have long been known for thrift, but they are also notable for not being afraid to jump on board with new ideas, their economy, energy and creative entrepreneurship the necessary ingredients to making visions come true.
In this spirit, the Bellows Falls Island, current home to the Waypoint interpretive center, and the Intermodal Center run by Destination Bellows Falls, is undergoing yet another revival. The Intermodal Center, a “true transportation hub” idea is an idea whose time has come and is predicated upon nearly 165 years of transportation history.
Bellows Falls has been a hub of transportation from its earliest days as a destination for city slickers from Boston who traveled to Keene, N.H., then north to Bellows Falls where, for a toll, they were encouraged to cross the bridge to Vermont, stopping mid-bridge to feel the roar of the water rushing through the falls just below them, vibrating the wooden slats they stood on.
Enoch Hale's historic timber bridge built in 1784 was the first bridge across the Connecticut River to connect the north-south transportation route, and key in opening up northern routes to Canada through Vermont. Hale's choice to cross at the Great Falls instead of north or south was crucial to subsequent development in Bellows Falls.
Since January, business owners, volunteers and local officials have worked to turn the historic depot into a hub that will tie together all modes of public transportation. In addition to his work as acting stationmaster, Gary Fox works as managing director for Destination Bellows Falls, established in January by...
“We're in the 21st century. We're one of the wealthiest nations in the world. Why isn't [health care reform] happening?” That question, asked by Vermont Workers Center organizer Kate Kanelstein at a health care forum last month in Bellows Falls, is one that has been asked by Vermonters for...
Sam Maskell didn't plan to become a librarian. But when her daughter entered preschool, they began to come to the Rockingham Free Public Library to find books to read together. Maskell was disappointed by what she found. “They had some kids' books, but the collection was as big as that corner, upstairs and stuck in the back,” Maskell said, indicating a small three stack area of the library in one corner. The Youth Department now has its own space and...
The Bellows Falls Trustees' Town Manager Committee concluded last week that hiring a new employee was not in their best interests, and that if an assistant manager position was approved by the voters, someone from within the pool of existing employees would be considered. Earlier this year, the Rockingham Selectboard decided to eliminate two full-time positions that served both Town and Village without consulting Village Trustees. In June, the Selectboard refused to use funds allocated to preserve those positions that...
“I got bored … then realized there’s a lot of creative kids around here,” said Nina Simoneaux, the idea person behind the one-day youth art exhibit being held at 33 Bridge St., from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 14. Simoneaux, 18, of Langdon, N.H., a former Fall Mountain School student who will attend Pratt Institute in New York this fall, said that when she realized the number of youth in the area who had no place to showcase...
A tradition of town meetings and dinner-table political discussions frames Michael Obuchowski's interest in continuing to run in, and win, 19 previous races for a seat in the Vermont House of Representatives. This month, Obuchowski announced his candidacy for his 20th term in Montpelier. As he has since 1998, he is teaming up with fellow Democrat Carolyn Partridge of Windham to run for the two seats in the Windham-4 district. They are unopposed in the Aug. 24 Democratic primary, and...
French and American ties span several centuries, dating back to military and economic support the French gave American colonies as they struggled for independence from the British during the Revolutionary War. As the first American Ambassador to France, Ben Franklin brought an exchange of ideas in a time of a cultural renaissance fostered by the royal court in the years before the French Revolution. The twin growth of republican forms of governments in both countries in the late 18th century...
