Vermont Listed as Endangered

A preservation group put Vermont on its list of America’s most endangered places Monday, warning that this New England state’s small-town charm was threatened by Wal-Mart.

Vermont is the only state ever to make the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual list in its entirety.

The state has four Wal-Marts -- all small by company standards -- and Vermont preservationists say the company is planning to enlarge two of them and open five new ones. Wal-Mart said it has firm plans only for one new store, in St. Albans.

Trust President Richard Moe said Vermont’s “special magic” would vanish with the arrival of the giant stores. “Vermont is uniquely a state of small towns, and many of these downtowns would be decimated by this,” Moe said. “A lot of small businesses just disappear in the face of a huge Wal-Mart.”

Mia Masten, Wal-Mart’s community affairs manager for the Eastern region, suggested such fears were being overdramatized. “It sounds as if we’re trying to go and push our way in,” Masten said. “But we are asking for and getting local input. We want a project that everyone likes at the end of the day.”

Paul Bruhn, executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont, said the state’s economy depends on the unique villages that tourists love.

“One of the things that’s wonderful about Vermont is that we have intact downtowns that each are different places, in part because they’re not overwhelmed by chain retail businesses,” he said.

Other sites on the list include Nine Mile Canyon in Utah, with its 10,000 Indian rock-art images; the Ridgewood Ranch in Northern California, the home and final resting place of the racehorse Seabiscuit; and Pennsylvania’s Bethlehem Works steel plant.

Vermont was first placed on the list in 1993 because of Wal-Mart’s plans to expand there. Vermont at the time was the only state without a Wal-Mart. “The threat which we thought had been contained has not only come back, but has come back in an enormous way,” said Kennedy Smith, director of the National Trust’s National Main Street Center in Washington.

“We think the danger to the character of Vermont communities and the landscape is so severe that it warrants making an exception and relisting the state.”