vermont country store

The Vermont Country Store, Inc. is an American catalogue, retail, and e-commerce business based entirely in Vermont, with stores in Weston and Rockingham, company headquarters in Manchester, and a distribution facility and customer service center in North Clarendon.

Founded in 1946 in Weston, Vermont by Vrest and Ellen Orton, The Vermont Country Store is still run by the Orton family, and serves approximately 1,000,000 customers annually. Branded as “Purveyors of the Practical & Hard-to-Find,” The Vermont Country Store sells various general merchandise, traditional, and nostalgic items.

Since 1946, the store’s mail order catalogue, The Voice of the Mountains, has been distributed nationally. Since 1999, The Vermont Country Store’s second publication, Goods and Wares, has been distributed nationally as well. Contents [hide] 1 History 2 Vrest Orton’s Public Service 3 Community Support and the Orton Family Foundation 4 External links 5 References //

History

While the Vermont Country store first opened in Weston, Vermont in 1946, its origins lie in the Orton family’s long Vermont history. In 1897, Gardner Lyman Orton, the 12th generation of Ortons in the United States, opened a general store in Calais, Vermont. Gardner and his wife Leila had a son Vrest, founder of The Vermont Country Store, the same year.

The Orton General Store, owned by Vrest’s father, Gardner Lyman, was the focal point of Vrest’s early years. At the age of 13, Vrest rented an office from his father, started his own publishing business.

After serving in World War I, in France, Vrest entered the class of 1923 at Harvard, and then served briefly in the U.S. Consular Service before going to New York City in 1925. There he was on the staff of H.L. Mencken’s American Mercury, Alfred Knopf publishers, the Saturday Review of Literature, Life Magazine, and in 1929, founded the international book collector’s magazine, The Colophon. During this time, Vrest became known as an authority on typography and book-collecting, and published many articles on various American writers. Vrest returned to Vermont in 1935, and settled in Weston where he founded a book publishing company, The Countryman Press.

In the early 1940’s, Vrest decided that he wanted to revive an authentic, old-fashioned, rural operating store near the northern Vermont store his family had run in Calais, but the idea was postponed until the end of the World War II. Vrest spent the War years working for the Pentagon as a speechwriter. Upon its conclusion, he returned once again to Vermont where he set to work on his vision.

Drawing from his family’s past retail experience, Vrest and his wife Mildred Ellen made an attempt at the mail-order business when they sent out the first Voice of the Mountains catalogue printed in their garage print shop to the family’s Christmas card list in late 1945. The first catalogue consisted of twelve pages and thirty-six items.

Riding on the success of that first catalogue,