Vermont General Stores: Past, Present and Future
January 24, 2026

Vermont is home to 252 cities and towns, 55 state parks, 808 lakes and ponds, and 14 counties. But if you try to count how many Vermont general stores there are, it’s not so easy.

“It’s kind of hard to define them,” says Ben Doyle, president of the Preservation Trust of Vermont in Montpelier. “The central characteristic is that they’re a gathering place…an egalitarian place where anybody can go in there and feel at home.”

I made my own list of Vermont general stores and counted 64, though I’m sure I missed a few. A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor said the number of independently run general stores is 70, which is down from 125 in 2001.

The Preservation Trust of Vermont has helped about a dozen Vermont communities establish nonprofits to run general stores that were on the verge of closing. Some of the stores the organization has helped include The Elmore Store, the Strafford General Store, and Pierce’s Store in Shrewsbury.

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