How Vermont got so many town forests

By Lexi Krupp,

Published February 6, 2025 at 5:09 PM EST

A man is bundled up and stands in front of a gate on a snowy road. — Town forests are hard to define, and they have a myriad of uses. Here, David Brynn stands at the entrance of the Bristol Town Forest 鈥� which has been used as a source of water and timber, and more recently, for sugaring and flood control.

Most towns have one, but no two are exactly the same 鈥� and their stories are still unfolding.

is 开云体育鈥檚 listener-powered journalism podcast. Every episode begins with a question submitted by our audience. Today, a question from Anne Wallace, in Bristol:

鈥淲hat is the deal with Vermont town forests?鈥�

Note: Our show is made for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We鈥檝e also provided a transcript. Transcripts are generated using a combination of robots and human transcribers, and they may contain errors.

Josh Crane: From 开云体育 and the NPR network, this is Brave Little State. I鈥檓 Josh Crane.

Now, whenever I have friends or family visiting, I try to get them out on a hike. And pretty often, that means I take them to the trail at Gile Mountain. It鈥檚 close to where I live. It鈥檚 a short hike, but there鈥檚 a great view from the top. I know it well.

What I didn鈥檛 know until I Googled it last week, is that this bit of land is located in the Norwich Town Forest. I learned this because town forests are the focus of today's winning question. And it turns out town forests are all over Vermont.

Literally, I went for a pretty short drive earlier today, and I swear, I passed signs for, like, three different town forests. And yet, I鈥檝e done that drive a million times, and I鈥檝e never really noticed them before.

We tasked Lexi Krupp to learn more about town forests. Lexi is the science and health reporter at 开云体育, and she鈥檚 a regular here on BLS. Here鈥檚 Lexi.

Lexi Krupp: There are 252 cities and towns in Vermont. And there鈥檚 a . It鈥檚 something Anne Wallace started doing with her husband a few years ago.

Anne Wallace: We are extremely non-methodical about it. But we go to places that we don't know much about and have never maybe even heard of.

Lexi Krupp: And whenever she visits a new town on the list, she makes a couple stops.

Anne Wallace: My favorite thing to do is to visit the town library, the town clerk, and if there鈥檚 a state park nearby. And then, some places had town forests.

A woman points to a page in a blue binder. There's a Christmas tree in the background. — Anne Wallace is trying to visit every town in Vermont. She keeps her notes on each town in a binder. Her trips around the state have made her curious about town forests 鈥� where they come from and which towns have them.

Lexi Krupp: Town forests. These are usually just what they sound like: forests owned by towns. Often pretty big 鈥� sometimes hundreds, or even thousands of acres. But not always. Sometimes they鈥檙e small, oddly shaped pieces of land 鈥� they could be owned by a school or public utility. As Anne kept seeing signs for them on her tour of towns, they became these mysteries on the municipal landscape.

Anne Wallace: I thought, what is the deal? I mean really, literally, what is the deal with town forests? What鈥檚 the history? Why are they there, or why not?

Lexi Krupp: There's no complete accounting of all the town forests in Vermont. But as best we know, about two-thirds of towns have one. Many have more than one. And each town forest has its own idiosyncratic history of how it came to be. Old church properties or hillside farms that couldn鈥檛 keep up with local taxes. Some have been sold or lost, forgotten by the collective memory of town government. Others are brand new, like the forests , and .

And even though winning question-asker Anne has noticed town forests in other communities, she wants to know what about her town? Bristol, in Addison County.

Anne Wallace: I don鈥檛 even know, I鈥檓 really ashamed to say, I don鈥檛 even know if Bristol has a town forest. I thought, I could call and ask, and then I thought, 鈥淣o I鈥檓 going to let Lexi do that research.鈥� I don鈥檛 think it does.

Lexi Krupp: Well, I did do the research. And Bristol does have a town forest. But there鈥檚 a good reason Anne hasn鈥檛 heard of it. It鈥檚 located entirely within a different town: Lincoln.

I head to this little sliver of Bristol, inside the neighboring town of Lincoln 鈥� when we come back.

Trees, trails and town water

Lexi Krupp: Bristol鈥檚 town forest is at the end of Water Works Road 鈥� in Lincoln.

It鈥檚 a skinny tract of land along a stream at the base of Mount Abraham. I visited recently with local forester David Brynn.

David Brynn: Well, it's kind of a temperate hardwood rainforest. It's a鈥� this is where yellow birches just love to grow.

Lexi Krupp: Maple syrup lines crisscross the surrounding woods. It鈥檚 a dense forest, but there鈥檚 a wide path from an old logging road.

David Brynn: Further up you get hemlock. They prosper up in these kind of cooler, moist places.

The Bristol Town Forest used to supply water to the town. This old sign that greets visitors today is a clue about the land's past. — The old sign at the entrance to the Bristol Town Forest is a clue about the land's past.

Lexi Krupp: David was the Addison County forester for many years. Now, he .

And he tells .

It dates back to the early 1900s, when Bristol had a problem. They wanted to expand, but nearby springs for the growing village. So some townspeople came up with a plan.

David Brynn: They started looking up in the hills, and this piece of land was available, and they engineered this thing.

Lexi Krupp: The plan: build a pipe that would carry water from the mountains in Lincoln down to Bristol.

The town bought the land, and hired workers from Europe.

David Brynn: Imagine: 1905, there's a bunch of Italians here digging the ditch.

Lexi Krupp: They started in August. The work was hard and dangerous. Eventually, the workers asked for a raise. When they didn鈥檛 get it, they went on strike.

But it was too late 鈥� the pipe was nearly done. The town finished it without them. There was a big party to celebrate.

David Brynn: The town was joyous when they turned on the pipe down there and opened up the water, and it changed the economy of the town.

Lexi Krupp: That pipe is still under the ground here, but it鈥檚 been years since it supplied water to Bristol. The town found other places to get it.

And they鈥檝e also found other uses for this land. Over the years, they contracted with logging companies who chopped down trees here. And d, when imported fuel prices were really high, the forest became an energy source for locals.

A black-and-white newspaper article photo shows a man standing by a building with a waterfall coming off of it. — An intake system once delivered water from the mountains in Lincoln to the Bristol resevoir to be used as a water supply for the town. That system is documented here in an 1982 article in the *Addison County Independent.*

A man stands calf-deep in snow, looking at an icy, snowy scene in front of him. — Four decades later, David Brynn stands by the old intake system site.

David Brynn: We did this thing 鈥� the county foresters did 鈥� we'd go out and we'd mark little three cord lots. And people would come, and they paid a nominal fee. They'd bring their picnic baskets and stuff and their wheelbarrows. And a family would go out and they cut their firewood, and they'd load it up and they'd take it home. It was mighty sweet. And we got some really great forestry done.

Lexi Krupp: Families with picnic baskets haven鈥檛 harvested firewood from here in a long time. Like a lot of town forests in the state, Bristol鈥檚 has shape-shifted over the years to meet the changing needs of the town. Nowadays, this area is mostly used for walking, sugaring, and this time of year, skiing.

David Brynn: How鈥檚 the skiing?

Lexi Krupp: Sorry we ruined your tracks.

Lexi Krupp: We run into Lorni Cochran as we鈥檙e walking down the trail.

David Brynn: It鈥檚 a great day for it.

Lorni Cochran: It is, it鈥檚 so nice. Yeah, I'll tell you these humps have made it pretty interesting.

David Brynn: Yeah.

Lexi Krupp: If you didn鈥檛 catch it, she says, 鈥淭hese humps have made it pretty interesting.鈥�

The humps she鈥檚 referring to are like earthen speed bumps on the trail. Not great for skiers, but . And they鈥檙e here because of David.

Lexi Krupp: Well you鈥檙e, you're talking to the guy responsible for the humps.

Lorni Cochran: Oh, (laughter) I understand the rationale. But from a skier鈥檚 perspective.

David Brynn: Yeah.

Lorni Cochran: It鈥檚 the coming down.

A person in a green jacket skis on snowy trails underneath snowy trees. — These days, Bristol's town forest is mostly used for walking, sugaring and cross-country skiing.

Lexi Krupp: There are 35 of these humps. And they鈥檙e brand new 鈥� construction finished this summer. The idea is to slow down water during big rain storms, and help prevent flooding and.

David Brynn: It's kind of a thing between human use and ecological.

Lexi Krupp: This series of humps 鈥� the technical name for them is 鈥渂road based dips.鈥�

Lexi Krupp: You know, like every dip along this road probably.

David Brynn: I think, well, I think broad based dips are a work of art. I love them. They give me goosebumps.

Lexi Krupp: So that鈥檚 one town forest 鈥� owned by the town of Bristol, located in the town Lincoln. Historically used as a source of water and timber and firewood and, more recently, for sugaring and skiing and flood control.

Lexi Krupp: It's, it's sort of like, indicative of how, like, weird and random their histories can be.

David Brynn: Which is part of the beauty of them all. They're totally weird and random. And sometimes they鈥檙e complicated, but they鈥檙e all local. And that鈥檚 the cool part of it.

A tractor is in the foreground, covered in snow. There's a snow-capped tree-covered mountain in the background. — You can spot the north flank of the Bristol Town Forest from the Jersualem Country Store, in Lincoln.

The Vermont Town Forest Census

Lexi Krupp: Because they鈥檙e so weird and random, the term town forests can be a little hard to define, even for the experts.

Julie Frost: It's a little elusive, and it means something different to everybody.

Cecilia Danks: I鈥檝e heard people say, 鈥淲ell that鈥檚 not a town forest, that鈥檚 a park because we recreate there.鈥� Or, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not a town forest, that鈥檚 a conservation area.鈥�

Lexi Krupp: Julie Frost and Cecilia Danks study community based forestry at the University of Vermont. Cecilia says there are lots of ways towns ended up with town forests.

Cecilia Danks: I think in different eras, they came from different places. And in any given era, there wasn鈥檛 even one main use that people were looking for. They鈥檝e been sort of multiple use spaces since their inception.

Lexi Krupp: Some forests were originally part of the town poor farm, like in Calais and St. Johnsbury. Or in Sheffield, the town bought up farms on a remote mountain road and planted trees there to avoid having to plow. Other forests date all the way back to towns鈥� founding charters.

In 1915, Vermont even passed a law encouraging towns to create town forests.

Two men stand in shadow in front of a partly frozen pond. They're surrounded by skinny trees. — Some town forests were originally part of their town's poor farms, like the forest in Calais. Here, Calais's Larry Bush and Neal Maker stand beside Bliss Pond in the Bliss Pond Town Forest.

Cecelia Danks: And there is already a strong conservation movement coming out the late 1800s being really worried about our denuded landscapes. So you know, part of it is, can we encourage towns to purchase property to grow timber on, or to replant trees on, or to let regrow.

Lexi Krupp: Cecilia said this movement wasn鈥檛 just about planting trees. A lot of these bigwigs in government were thinking about recreation too.

And this wasn't just a Vermont thing. Town forests were popping up . And all over the country, people were talking about public lands.

Cecilia Danks: As different federal lands were being protected around that time as parks or National Forests, local communities were like, well, we can do that too. Especially 鈥� and it really took off in New England.

A list of town names and acreage. — A 1922 report documents some of Vermont's earliest town forests.

Lexi Krupp: Cecilia is sort of obsessed with town forests. She was part of a group that helped establish a town forest where she lives in Richmond. And as part of her academic research, she鈥檚 on this quest to track down every single one.

Cecilia Danks: I'm committed to getting to 100%.

Lexi Krupp: The project is called the Vermont Town Forest Census. She鈥檚 gotten funding from the U.S. Forest Service. And she鈥檚 not starting from scratch. The project is a big update to a .

Julie Frost: She showed it to me, and I was like, that sounds really, really interesting. There鈥檚 a lot of different components.

Lexi Krupp: Julie Frost is a graduate student doing the research.

She鈥檚 been contacting every town in the state, reaching out to town clerks, and anyone else who might know about these forests.

Accounting for every town forest in the state is harder than it may seem. Like recently, she reached out to a town clerk to ask about their forest:

Julie Frost: And she emailed back and she said, 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have any.鈥� And I said, 鈥淥h,鈥� politely, 鈥淐an you check again?鈥� And she got back to me and said, 鈥淥h you鈥檙e right. We do have that parcel. And it is forested. And we forgot about it.鈥�

Lexi Krupp: Besides trying to find town forests, the other part of Julie鈥檚 research is to figure out how they鈥檙e being used.

Like, in West Windsor, the . At Barre鈥檚 forest, there are a bunch of mountain biking trails. In Moretown, the elementary school uses the town forest, and it鈥檚 owned by the school district.

And then there are some towns that still don鈥檛 know exactly what to do with their town forest. Because they鈥檙e brand spanking new.

Jaime Schulte: It wasn't on the market, but ... it just seemed like such a great parcel.

Lexi Krupp: That鈥檚 after the break.

Sun shines through trees, illuminating a snowy path. — Some towns that are still figuring out what to do with their town forests, like the town of Monkton. Its newly acquired town forest is pictured here.

A new 鈥榞athering place鈥� in Monkton

Lexi Krupp: Welcome back to Brave Little State. I'm Lexi Krupp.

And this is Jaime Schulte.

Jaime Schulte: This is a new 鈥� fairly new building by the way. And we have this lovely view.

Lexi Krupp: We鈥檙e at the Monkton town hall. And it is a lovely view. Definitely the nicest town offices I鈥檝e ever been to.

Jaime Schulte: So this is where we did a lot of our community meetings.

Lexi Krupp: Jaime spends a lot of time here. He鈥檚 not a town employee 鈥� but he鈥檚 very involved.

Jaime Schulte: I鈥檓 on the development review board, and the conservation commission, the agricultural natural areas committee, and the town forest committee. So that is probably too many.

Lexi Krupp: He joined the town forest committee when it got started in 2019, to explore the possibility of establishing a town forest here. That鈥檚 because, for years, the town has wanted more community spaces. There鈥檚 a park with soccer fields near the school, but not many places with forests and wetlands that are publicly owned.

It took them a while to find a property that might work. They ended up cold calling a timber company 鈥� A Johnson鈥� about buying this odd-shaped piece of land on the southern edge of town that borders a big conservation area.

Jaime Schulte: It wasn't on the market, but we approached A Johnson about it, because it just seemed like such a great parcel, and they were receptive to talking.

Lexi Krupp: Talking led to the outlines of a deal: . The money would come from a combination of grants and federal funds set aside for the town from the America Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA

Jaime Schulte: The town鈥檚 portion was definitely less than 20%. And that鈥檚 kind of a screaming deal when you think about it.

Lexi Krupp: Before they jumped at the deal, the committee sent out postcards to every voter in Monkton, asking whether they supported the idea.

Jaime Schulte: This is all the actual postcards we got back.

A man wearing a fleece and glasses holds up a stack of postcards. He's smiling. — Jaime Schulte and the rest of the town forest committee wanted to see what Monkton residents thought about having a town forest there. So, they sent out postcards to every registered voter to ask for their input.

Lexi Krupp: Monkton voters gave Jamie and the rest of the committee the thumbs up. :

Jaime Schulte: 鈥淪o many reasons to support this, from recreation to preserving natural habitat.鈥� 鈥淢onkton town forest, that's the best reason.鈥� I mean, some of these are pretty nice!

Jaime and the town forest committee heard back from a third of voters in town. Most of them supported the proposal 鈥� like this voter, who wrote, "I support anything that preserves wild land."

Lexi Krupp: So, just a few months ago, in November, the town officially purchased the property.

Now that they have the land 鈥� they鈥檝e got to figure out what to do with it.

Jaime Schulte: We鈥檙e working on that but it's complicated. There's so many things to include and balance.

Lexi Krupp: Things like whether to allow horses and dogs. Leashed or off leash. Hunting, trapping, mountain biking. How to protect the local population of Eastern rat snakes and other wildlife.

Jaime Schulte: You鈥檝e got to fit all those considerations together. And it may be that not everything makes sense.

Lexi Krupp: They鈥檙e going to write up their ideas and get public input. And not everyone is going to be happy with all the decisions they make. Like, for years, people have ridden their ATVs there. That鈥檚 no longer allowed under the terms of the purchase.

But since the town acquired the property, Jaime has noticed an uptick in activity.

Jaime Schulte: You know, every time I go there, it seems like I run into at least one person that I know, you know, and a few that I don't. And so that's kind of good, right? It's definitely a new gathering place for people.

A man stands with a forest in the background. It's snowy and the sun is setting. — Jaime Schulte has been involved in Monkton's town forest project since the town started looking into the possibility six years ago.

Lexi Krupp: The new Monkton Town Forest property is a short drive from the town offices. There鈥檚 already some existing trails.

Jaime Schulte: So it looks like a couple people have been here since we had snow this morning.

Lexi Krupp: At one entrance is a temporary sign. It says, 鈥淲elcome to the Monkton Town Forest.鈥�

Jaime Schulte: Here we are.

Lexi Krupp: Wow.

Jaime Schulte: Here's what you can do, and please don't do.

Lexi Krupp: At the bottom of the sign is a note:

Lexi Krupp: 鈥淲e will be planning a community celebration in the spring of 2025!鈥�

Jaime Schulte: That's the plan.

A display sign says, "Welcome to the Monkton Town Forest!" — Monkton is throwing a party in the spring to celebrate its new forest.

Lexi Krupp: So even though the particulars are still up in the air of what exactly this town forest is going to look like, Monkton is throwing a party. A party to celebrate their new forest. They just have to sort out parking.

Credits

Thanks to Anne Wallace of Bristol for the great question.

This episode was reported by Lexi Krupp. It was produced by Burgess Brown, with editing from Josh Crane and Sabine Poux. Digital support from Sophie Stephens. Angela Evancie is Brave Little State鈥檚 Executive Producer. Our intern is Catherine Morrissey. Our theme music is by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Larry Bush, Neal Maker, Bob McCullough, Callie Brynn, Michael Giammusso, and Reg Dearborn. You can participate in UVM鈥檚 .

As always, our journalism is better when you鈥檙e a part of it:

Sign up for the BLS newsletter
Say hi on and @bravestatevt
Drop us an email: [email protected]
to support people-powered journalism
Tell your friends about the show!

Brave Little State is a production of 开云体育 and a proud member of the NPR Network.