A Reviving a New England tradition of town forests,
a Vermont town works to protect a mountain biking mecca on historic quarry lands.
by Joshua Brown A
century ago, on Millstone Hill in Barre Town, Vermont, men cut blocks of granite from dozens of small independent quarries. Supplying stone for public buildings and the always-lively market for gravestones,
granite mining made the nearby city of Barre prosperous—and left behind dramatic pits, chiseled gray cliffs, and unearthly mounds of waste rock. Old photos show not a single tree in sight. But by the 1940s, the granite industry had consolidated and declined, and the
small quarries on Millstone Hill were abandoned. “Left alone, nature eventually reclaims everything,” says Pierre Couture, 56, on the porch of his restored general store on the flank of Millstone Hill. As the forests returned, Couture grew up on a nearby farm with the slumbering quarry land as his backyard and playground.