Historic Richmond Vermont
Richmond lies in eastern Chittenden County, Vermont, where the Winooski River flows out of the Green Mountain foothills. Established in the late 1700s, the town has evolved from rural farming community to transportation hub to 21st-century village that still reflects and respects its heritage.
Timeline of Richmond History
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Abenaki seasonal hunting sites dated before 1500 AD have been found along the Winooski and Huntington Rivers in Richmond. European settlers began arriving in the area in the 1770s.
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On October 27, 1794, the Town of Richmond, Vermont, was formed by an act of the state legislature from portions of the neighboring towns of Huntington, Jericho and Williston. A section of a fourth town (Bolton) was added in 1804.
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Construction is completed on the Round Church. Funded by contributions from members of the town’s five Protestant congregations, the Church served as Richmond’s primary place of worship until the 1880s and as Town Meeting Hall until 1973.
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The Vermont Central Railroad opens in Richmond, which helps to transform this rural farming community into a local center of commerce and light industry.
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A Richmond Academy (high school) is constructed on the site of the current Town Center building. A new brick school building replaced it in 1907, with a north wing added in 1914. The brick building became home to town administrative offices after school operations ceased there in 1988.
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Electricity comes to Richmond Village. Power lines carry electricity generated at Huntington Gorge (formerly an active lumber mill site) down to the village homes and businesses. The local power plant closed in 1910 and villagers purchased electric current from a Burlington-based company.
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On April 23, 1908, the worst fire in Richmond’s history destroyed the downtown business district. The current row of brick buildings on upper Bridge Street was constructed in the aftermath of this fire and includes safety measures such as thick brick walls between building segments to prevent flames from spreading in the event of another fire.
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Vermont’s notorious November 1927 flood swept away homes, roadways and barns full of livestock in Richmond, though no human lives were lost. Clean up and reconstruction took months, and in some low-lying areas the damaged structures were never rebuilt. Three steel truss bridges across the Winooski River were built at this time to replace bridges that had been washed away in the flood.
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The east-west Winooski Turnpike (U.S. Route 2) was paved for the first time, after much of the roadway was destroyed in the 1927 flood.
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The last of Richmond’s nine one-room schools (in Jonesville) closes. After this closure, the 1908/1914 Richmond High School provided classes for all local students in grades one through 12, until the opening of the regional Mount Mansfield High School in 1967 sent the older students to the new campus in Jericho.
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The Richmond exit on Interstate 89 opens, leading to considerable housing development throughout the Town. After almost a century as a community of 1200 to 1500 people, Richmond’s population increased from 1303 to 4080 between 1960 and 2000.
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Richmond’s Barbara Ann Cochran wins the gold medal in Women’s Slalom ski racing at the Winter Olympic Games in Sapporo, Japan. In honor of her achievement, the Town of Richmond changed the name of the road on which she lived to “Cochran Road.” A small ski area opened by her parents in 1961 still operates there.
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A tract of Village land on the north bank of the Winooski River becomes Volunteers Green - a public park with bandshell, picnic tables, playground area and athletic fields.
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A new Richmond Elementary School opens on the campus at the edge of the village where Camels Hump Middle School had preceded it in 1972. The two historic downtown buildings vacated by the School District were transferred to the Town of Richmond. The old school building now houses Town administrative offices. The adjacent Universalist Church building, which had served as the school cafeteria and gymnasium since the late 1950s, has become the town library.
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In September 2011, Hurricane Irene causes the worst flooding in the Winooski Valley since 1927, inundating fields, roadways and homes in low-lying area. Richmond endured more catastrophic flooding in July 2023 and again in July 2024. These latter events were not hurricane-related, but they damaged many of the same areas as the 2011 disaster.