Bristol Downtown Historic District

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BRISTOL DOWNTOWN HISTORIC DISTRICT is the old commercial heart of Bristol, Vermont. It runs along Main Street on both sides for about one block and covers about 8 acres. The buildings are brick, two or three stories tall, and show styles from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Bristol sits in western Vermont near the Green Mountains. It was settled in the 1780s and was mainly an agricultural town until after the Civil War. The town center served farmers with a market and mills. In 1862, a factory near the New Haven River began turning wood into products. It later became a leading maker of coffins and other wood goods, but the industry declined after World War I.

Today, downtown Bristol is one long block of Main Street (VT Route 116) just north of the New Haven River. The central four-way junction connects North, South, and West Streets, with the town hall at the southwest corner. East of the junction, the street is lined with more than a dozen late-19th/early-20th-century brick buildings. The north side is dominated by the Union Block, a single building with seven storefronts. Behind the south-side buildings is Kilburn Mill, built in 1924 and one of the town’s last surviving historic factories.