But the railroad era faded, and when it did, highways drained the lifeblood from this town. Interstates 89 and 91 were built, looping together just far enough away to miss local businesses. For years, cut off from the highways, White River Junction lacked a reason to exist.
In the past year or so, however, things have changed. The town has transformed itself into an artists' colony, and visitors are coming back, attracted perhaps by the antique buildings and 1940s facades.
A professional theater company fixed up the old Briggs Opera House and puts on performances year-round. A costume shop opened to supply it. A cooperative printmaking studio came in, a retro clothing shop, a natural food co-op, some top-notch restaurants, and the groundbreaking Center for Cartoon Studies, a two-year program with a library endowed by the estate of the late Charles M. Schulz, creator of ''Peanuts." An interior design company now fills a showroom with swank leather sofas. Designer Isobel Jones creates luxury stoles from ostrich feathers in her studio in the old firehouse. And though the population is a mere 2,500 and the commercial district barely fills a single square block, there's a new feeling in the air, a sense of expectation.
David Holtz has opened an antiquarian bookshop, the Hundredth Monkey, in a partly vacant wooden building on Gates Street. Next door is a boutique called Lampscapes, where a former engineer, Ken Blaisdell, hand-paints each lampshade.
''We're the SoHo district," Holtz says, joking.
