Calais Vermont
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Maple Corner History
Maple Corner General Store
By Donald L. Smith
A large complicated
jigsaw puzzle in a window of the Maple Corner General Store entices
customers and visitors alike to this busy center of activity in the village
of Maple Corner. Customers often pause in their shopping to add a piece or
two.
Now under the ownership
of Orville and Audrey Ennis, this country store has been open continuously
since 1900, when the business was started by George Mann in nearby Kents
Corner. With the ending of the stage coach route through Kents Corner, the
population center moved to Maple Corner and, with it, the newly opened
store.
Sales slips, delivery
records and account books from earlier days offer an interesting picture of
the way business was conducted in country stores in those bygone times.
Deliveries of customer orders, even at some distance from the store, were
apparently common.
After the Maple Corner
Store burned in the early 1940s, the business was taken over by the Adamant
Cooperative Store, and a new and modern building still in use at Maple
Corner was constructed. This made the Adamant Consumers Cooperative Grocery
Store the first such cooperative in Vermont to open a branch business
location. The enlarged business prospered under the general management of
Clarence Fitch in Adamant, with Floyd tucker managing the Maple Corner
operation. With the change in shopping habits that developed after WWII,
coupled with better roads to the urban areas, the Adamant Cooperative
management decided to sell the Maple Corner branch and it has been under
private owners since.
- The East Calais General Store
By Libby Ralph
To open the door of the
East Calais General Store on Route 14 is to step back in time --
momentarily. A first glance shows a myriad of goods traditional to a Vermont
village general store. But a second glance shows the Vermont Megabucks
apparatus and a modern coffee maker, the gathering-place for
"regulars" starting their day when owner John Gall opens up at
6:30 a.m. He is assisted by his wife, Sharon, owners since 1986.
The East Calais General
Store has the same purpose as an old-time village store: it is virtually
"all things to all people." It has whatever one needs, from
general grocery staples, health and beauty items, to video rentals, hardware
and Sunday papers in other words, practically "one stop
shopping." It is also an agent for Vermont hunting and fishing licenses
and, of course, live bait in season.
John figures the store
is between 150 and 165 years old, and has had a succession of owners, some
of many years duration. Early owners were the Dwinell family members, a name
still prominent in East Calais.
The layout inside the
store has changed only in location of shelves and check-out. John took a
poll of his customers to get their ideas of improved convenience, and moved
shelves accordingly the first time, he thinks, in at least 44 years.
The customer base is
mainly townspeople, added to in the summer by campers at the several nearby
lakes and tourists stopping as they pass by.
The exterior of the
store belies its size. Aerial photos show a large L-shaped two-storied
building, containing three apartments on the second floor. An ample front
porch marks the entrance, and on one side are newer Getty self-serve gas
pumps.
A highly visible feature
on the porch is the large bulletin board with the usual community
communications. If one just wants to watch the world go by, two
Adirondack-type double chairs offer repose.
As with most village
stores, the East Calais General Store is open long hours.
- Adamant Cooperative Store
Celebrates 50 Years-plus
by Barbara Floersch
Sitting squarely at the
junction of all incoming roads, the small Adamant Cooperative Store is
literally the center of the village of Adamant. As the organizer of dances,
foliage bazaars, Fourth of July festivities and the supplier of groceries,
the store is figuratively the center of Adamant as well. But historically,
the modest little store is a living reminder of the cooperative movement
that swept the nation during the depths of the Great Depression, and through
its offspring, the Washington Electric Cooperative and the Adamant Credit
Union, it touches the lives of thousands.
In the early 1930s folks
in Adamant were concerned about their need for readily available supplies at
reasonable prices. Based on literature obtained from the Cooperative League
of the United States, in April, 1935, eleven families invested $5.00 each to
begin an experiment that in August of that year resulted in the
incorporation of the first cooperative in the State of Vermont. Through
working together towards a common goal, the small community established a
grocery of its very own.
Perhaps it was this
success, in part, that inspired the store's board of directors to tackle
another pressing community problem - the lack of electricity. With the
backing of the Rural Electrification Act of 1935, the group formed the
Washington Electric Cooperative. Since the Cooperative was formed, it has
burgeoned into a major source of power for the county and now serves
approximately 6,700 residents.
At the heart of the
cooperative movement is the ideal of service to the community, and in 1942
the store established the first state-chartered credit union in Vermont. In
order to join the Credit Union a person must be a stockholder in the store.
Eventually, the credit union merged with the North Country Credit Union in
East Montpelier.
The unique challenges of
the present are modern circumstances that render the store unable to compete
with the lower prices and extensive offerings of the large area
supermarkets. Even besieged by a host of modern problems the store continues
in 1996 as the center of the community and, as such, its activities are
diverse.
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