NEB&W Layout Guide - South Hero, Grand Isle & the Winooski River

Last Update: 2008-11-16

Layout Guide Table of Contents

More in the South Hero Photo Gallery , Grand Isle Photo Gallery & Winooski River Photo Gallery.

South Hero

During the Revolutionary War, Ethan Allen, his brother and the Green Mountain Boys captured Fort Ticonderoga by catching the Redcoats by surprise. In a burst of egotism, they named the largest islands in Champlain after themselves, the "Hero" islands, north and south.

Even the largest, South Hero, was never more than a minuscule cluster of buildings at a convenient crossroads, some of which were stone farmhouses dating back to this period.

South Hero is a small farming community. Down by the depot was a corn cannery and a dry bean elevator. The land throughout the island is not much above lake level, and there are many swampy areas.

America has only just recognized the importance of wetlands in preserving the overall ecology. Among other things, migrating birds use these as resting points in their long seasonal journeys. Land-based predators can not move quickly through swampy areas such as this, so the birds can regain some strength in relative safety, while feeding on the insects, fishes or lush grasses that inhabit wetlands year-round. At this time of year (late September), Canadian Geese take a respite from their migration south. The geese are commercially available European-type geese which were repainted to match the markings of North American fowl.

In 1915, the Twitchell & Champlain Company of Maine built a plant here for the purpose of buying local sweet corn, processing it from cob to can, and shipping it by rail throughout New England under their brand name, "Maine's Finest Corn." The steam-powered plant only operated for some six weeks every September. Wagon loads of unhusked corn would draw up and unload for preparing, cooking, canning, sealing and packaging. Around 1930, the depressed market price for corn and a plague of ear worms forced the plant to close.

The cornfield was modeled using a floor mat, with the alternate rows cut away. Should we find a better way to model corn, we will gladly replace this field.

In 1918, the Belden, Inc. of Geneseo, NY built a plant here to clean, sort, and store dry beans grown locally. Belden already owned 25-30 such elevators in New England and New York, including one at nearby North Hero. This seasonal operation, starting in late October, lasted some ten to twenty weeks. Ten women employees processed 500 bags (100 lbs. each) for a box car load each week. Around 1930, Belden sold out to Friend Brothers of Boston, whose baked beans are still sold today.

Prices for the beans varied between 7 and 18 cents per pound and farmers found it profitable to plant a portion of their farms in beans. During WWII, the government pegged the price at 8-1/2 cents/lb. Milk and dairy prices, however, continued to rise, and farmers no longer planted beans in favor of dairy products. The dwindling supply of beans forced the closing of both this and the North Hero plant. The South Hero plant was abandoned and torn down in 1945.

Although South Hero had a creamery, at the time we didn't know it was still standing (but hidden in the trees), so we chose to model the original wood-frame structure from Grand Isle in its place.

Grand Isle

The island of South Hero is so large that the Rutland had two station stops. While one was named as expected, the second one was called Grand Isle. When the railroad built its line up through the islands in 1900, it opened up the need for a commercial hotel. Fredrick Martell, a local blacksmith, purchased an acre of land at the railroad station the following year, and built the front portion of the hotel. As the only hotel in town, it enjoyed substantial patronage, and later was enlarged. The building survived the Rutland RR's demise in 1963, but has since been torn down.

The Grand Isle Co-operative Creamery was rebuilt in 1929. They shipped milk to Whiting Milk Company in Boston.

Winooski River

The north end of Lake Champlain (which we have modeled as the south end of our fictitious Lake Richelieu) is very shallow and the land surfaces are very flat. The last miles of the Winooski River meanders across a flood plain, with plenty of oxbows. The name of the river is Indian, meaning "stinky river" because along its shores are fields of wild onions, which we have modeled with fake fur. The Rutland RR's bridge, built in 1900 as part of the island line, was washed out in the great flood of 1927, and replaced with the more modern bridge shown.

Summer Cabins

Bert Pennypacker, in an article in Railroad Magazine (April, 1970) quoted a Pennsylvania RR engine foreman about the quality of Rutland RR mechanics. The foreman had a summer cabin on Lake Champlain, and in the 1940's, he could identify individual Rutland locomotives by the sound of their exhaust. He wished his own men could fine-tune the valve gear cutoff as well. Naturally, we had to model some summer cabins from which perhaps this foreman might be listening.

Summer cabins became popular when auto travel made practical individual vacationing, away from the Catskills and Adirondack's grand hotels. Cabins thus represent 1930's and 1940's vernacular architecture, designed mainly as a place to sleep, since most daytime activities occurred outside. A screened-in porch was for evenings. As a second home for blue-collar workers, they were small and cheap, without the sturdiness needed to keep out the winter's winds. They also lacked a basement and elaborate heating facilities. For more about the unique architecture of summer cabins, see this section.

For more information about the northern Champlain region, also check out: Rutland's Island Line