The way it was

Overlooking the Connecticut River on the Vermont-New Hampshire border, Bellows Falls feels like a step back in time. Once one of the largest papermaking centers in the world, the town is replete with grand homes built by titans of the pulp, paint, canal, and railroad companies that operated there more than a century ago. Most of its diminutive downtown - a cluster of red brick buildings, including a multistory clock tower above Town Hall - is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Water has been the most valuable amenity in Bellows Falls, first making the area a prized Native American fishing spot (ancient Abenaki petroglyphs are carved in rocks by the riverbed), and later spurring the construction of mills, a bridge, and a canal system that turned the town into a hub of transportation and manufacturing. But Bellows Falls had a familiar post-industrial trajectory: By the mid-1900s most local industry had collapsed and the town fell on hard times. In more recent years, economic redevelopment and historic preservation efforts have injected new life into the community. Many of those gorgeous old homes have been restored, and a smattering of art galleries, modest restaurants, cute shops, and cozy inns makes Bellows Falls a quaint destination.