Country roads to highways: Infrastructure paved the way for Vermont’s tourism industry  

By Andrew Liptak, PR & Guest Services Coordinator
 
On September 20th, 1930, the residents of southern Vermont turned out for a grand celebration: the opening of a section of the Ethan Allen highway (now Route 7) between Pownal and Manchester. Thousands of people showed up to celebrate, and the festivities included an airplane flyover, a number of cars decked out in livery for the occasion, and costumed historical figures, including the highway’s namesake, Ethan Allen. The celebration was a sign of what was to come for Vermont’s changing relationship with the rest of the country and itself: a state that was increasingly shifting its dependence from agriculture to tourism.  

Three years earlier, Vermont endured the worst natural disaster in its history: the great flood of 1927, which destroyed bridges and roads and killed 85 people, including the state’s Lieutenant Governor. In Freedom & Unity: A History of Vermont, Michael Sherman, Gene Sessions, and P. Jeffrey Potash explain that the destruction prompted a massive rebuilding effort in which the state prioritized its roadways: “The concentration on road reconstruction while accepting the permanent loss of many miles of rail track hastened a decline in the state’s economic reliance on railroads and a shift to highways.”  

That new infrastructure arrived as Vermonters were contending with major shifts in their relationship with the rest of the country. In the later half of the 19th century, the state's dominant agricultural industry was in decline as residents left for elsewhere. Emigration forced state officials and commercial interests to begin a concerted advertising effort to boost the state’s appeal as a tourist destination, highlighting its scenery and rural nature.  

While visitors originally came via train and might stay for weeks at a time in a central resort or large hotel, Jan Albers writes in Hands on the Land: A History of the Vermont Landscape that in the 1920s, the freedom of the automobile changed how visitors experienced the state. “Tourists were now apt to stay in one place for a night or two and then move on looking for another thrill. The great hotels quickly began to die off.”

The improved infrastructure and advertising worked. “Vermont’s economy enjoyed a modest upswing at the end of the 1930s,” say Sherman, Sessions, and Potash, “boosted by an increase in tourism made possible by the growth in ownership of motor vehicles in the previous decade and expansion of the state’s hard-surfaced highways,” of which the Ethan Allen Highway was part.  

Not all of those projects panned out. The rise of traffic and tourism put a spotlight on the tension between preserving Vermont’s rural identity and the need for modern day infrastructure. In 1933, Colonel William J. Wilgus, a former chief engineer from the New York Central Roadway, proposed the Green Mountain Parkway, which would run through the state’s mountains. Much like the Blue Ridge Parkway, it would serve as both an easy route for visitors and a destination in and of itself. But the prospect of a road running up Vermont’s scenic mountains made Vermonters uneasy, and they brought significant opposition to both the state legislature and town meetings. The project came to an end in 1936.  

When the Second World War came to an end in 1945, it brought with it significant changes to the country: a burgeoning middle class made up of returning veterans, which boosted interest in travel and recreation. President Eisenhower signed the Federal Highway Act into law in 1956, launching a massive, nation-wide infrastructure project that would install modern roadways across the country. Workers began construction on the first section of I-91 in 1957, culminating in 320 miles of pavement by the time the final stretch was completed in 1982. The interstate connected a majority of Vermonters and provided tourists unprecedented easy access to the state’s ski areas, villages, and forests.  

The tensions between developers looking to capitalize on tourism traffic and those wanting to retain Vermont’s rural characteristics remained. Albers notes that these tensions led to a range of restrictions and programs, ranging from the introduction of town zoning laws to the 1968 billboard ban, the introduction of Green Up Day in 1970, and the 1972 bottle bill, designed to disincentivize littering, all designed to preserve the state’s appealing scenery.  

According to the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, tourism remains a dominant industry for Vermont, logging 15.8 million visitors in 2023, who brought in $4 billion in revenue that supports nearly 10 percent of the state’s jobs.  

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of our member magazine, History Connections. To get it and support the Vermont Historical Society, sign up as a member.