The Vermont Country Store: Nostalgia in the Green Mountains

The store has saved brands from disappearing altogether.

The Vermont Country Store stands as a living time capsule of small-town 1940s America. Walter Bibikow/Getty Images

When you walk into The Vermont Country Store, you’re stepping back in time. Whether you’re visiting the flagship store in Weston, Vermont, or exploring the Rockingham, Vermont, location with its mill pond, gristmill, and water wheel, it’s more than a nostalgia trip. It’s nothing short of a spiritual reset.

In Weston, the creak of wooden floorboards, the sweet smell of candy, and the jingle of the shopkeeper’s bell transport you back to an early-1900s general store. Both stores offer a combination of sights, sounds, and smells that evoke happy memories of simpler times, a feeling Americans can’t get enough of.

A Legacy Rooted in Vermont Heritage

In 1946, Vrest and Mildred Orton opened The Vermont Country Store in the picturesque village of Weston. Drawing inspiration from his father’s general store in North Calais, Vermont, Vrest restored the building to recreate the rural general store of his youth. The National Register of Historic Places lists it as “the first restored and operational rural general store in America.”