Slate mines dot the landscape in the central portion of the Stone Valley; some are dormant and filled with water while others remain active.Labor strikes occurred in the marble industry as early as 1859, but did not achieve any measurable success once Proctor consolidated the industry. Labor strikes in the slate industry apparently did not occur until after the 1870s depression, and only achieved significant impact in a 1907 strike, which became national in scope.
Wood products and other manufacturers were also significant components of the regional economy during this period. Between 1865 and 1910, a variety of lumber and charcoal companies clear-cut tens of thousands of acres in the Green Mountain areas of the region; in 1880 lumbering and wood products manufacturing comprised almost one-fifth of the region's manufacturing work force. Foundry work related to the railroad and the stone industries, grew out of the older ironworks, as did the single largest manufacturer, the Howe Scale Company, which employed almost half of the Rutland Citywork force in 1909. In 1899 Rutland City itself accounted for about one quarter of both county employment and value of manufactured goods, and ranked second in the state for its employment and manufactures.
Commerce for the most part expanded throughout the steam age in the regional industrial villages, as it did in other areas of Vermont with significant manufacturers. Regional per capita income in farm communities remained high overall, but the most notable gains during the period were made in the industrial villages with a commercial center and manufacturing that went beyond stone products. Many small-scale manufacturers were replaced by merchants selling mass-produced goods, and financial, shipping, communication, and personal services and professions multiplied.
The largest, most traveled electric street railway in Vermont, which in 1904 stretched from Rutland City to Fair Haven, and in 1911 to Poultney, connected most of the industrial villages and helped establish the city as the major county retail center. At the same time, a sizable summer recreation industry, consisting of resort hotels and summer homes, became established in the Taconic lake region. Electricity, telephones, and automobiles were all well established throughout most of the region by 1915.
In the 20th century, Rutland County industrialization and urbanization reached its peak before the First World War; thereafter the regional stone and wood products industries went into decline, removing the underpinnings of related manufactures and commerce in most of the industrial villages. Rutland City emerged as the leader of manufacturing in the region providing over a third of industrial employment and near one half of the value of manufactures in the region. Agriculture became almost synonymous with dairying, as increased government involvement in milk pricing and marketing made it the most profitable agricultural specialty. Most other specialties and diversified practices were abandoned with the number of farms and acres in farms declining and their average size increasing.
The mobility afforded by the auto put the commercial center of Rutland City within reach of even more of the county populace, drove the electric trolley out of business by 1924, and brought the summer recreation industry, including summer camps for children, to the more remote lakes and ponds of the region. Auto-oriented and tourist-oriented sales and service businesses accounted for most new commercial ventures within the region during the 1920s and 1930s, a trend encouraged by both Prohibition and the Great Depression.
The depression accelerated the decline of the stone industries, leading to a bitter, sustained strike against Vermont Marble Company, and ended the commercial expansion in Rutland City. The Rutland Railroad also experienced labor difficulties and reorganized to avoid bankruptcy in 1938. The major impact of Federal relief programs, other than for dairy pricing, came in the form of local Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps and operations in state and national forests and parks. Besides upgrading summer recreation facilities, the C.C.C. created the first downhill ski area in the county in Shrewsbury; then one of the first successful commercial ski operations in Vermont was started on Pico Peak. Since the Second World War the ski industry, limited stone work, retailing, health care, summer recreation, and manufacturing have provided the economic sustenance of the region.
During the last thirty years the Rutland Region has seen an influx of manufacturing firms, growth in the recreation - vacation home industry and significant immigration of people who have either retired or have moved from the cities for a better living environment. Growth in tourism has been an important factor in the region.
Evidence of renewed interest in the region's
sheep-raising agricultural heritage.
Rutland County History continued...
The construction of railroads through the region accelerated the specialization and commercialization of agriculture. In a near reversal of the wool-growing era, between 1850 and 1900 farmers in valley towns (with good rail access) tended to specialize in dairying and stock breeding, while sheep raising was more likely in upland areas of the region; despite these trends, however, significant diversity of agricultural pursuits within and among farms remained. Due to better access to metropolitan markets, as well as local demand, dairying in the region moved from cheese to butter to fluid milk sales earlier than more northerly portions of Vermont.
Railroads, together with steam-power technology, between 1850 and 1910 spurred the rapid and profitable exploitation of the stone and wood resources of the region, much as they did throughout Vermont, New Hampshire, and the rest of the nation. In the region these industries, together with related manufacturers, came to dominate the local economy and replaced agriculture as the primary source of wealth.
They also encouraged Irish, Welsh, French-Canadian, Swedish and Italian immigration to industrial villages, which reached a peak in 1910 when almost 17 percent of the region's population was foreign-born and another 25 percent were natives born of at least one foreign parent. In the last two decades of the 19th century, Rutland Region became the preeminent industrial county in Vermont. In 1900, 5,598 workers were employed in manufacturing, almost 50 percent more than its nearest county rival.
The stone industry in particular brought skilled labor to the region and contributed to a diverse cultural composition. The name "Slate Valley" is given to an area about 24 miles long and six miles wide along the Vermont/New York border. Slate deposits discovered there in 1839 became an economically viable industry in 1850, attracting immigrants from Wales, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Italy, Ireland, Hungary and eventually Canada as well.
The Slate Valley industry was complimented by marble quarrying. The marble and slate industries employed well over half of the region's work force by 1890 and purchased the bulk of region's foundry goods and rail service. Vermont marble was first quarried in Dorset in the late 1700s. Nearby Poultney became the seat of the Vermont Marble Company, considered the largest U.S. corporation in the early 1900s. Vermont marble was used in buildings and monuments throughout the country.
