America turns 250 this year, and Burlington has more to say about that milestone than most places. This isn't a city that stumbled into history. It lived it. The shores of Lake Champlain were contested ground during the Revolution and the War of 1812. Ethan Allen farmed his final years along the Winooski River, just north of town. Fort Ticonderoga, Battery Park, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. These aren't recreations. They're the real thing, and they're all within reach.
To mark the anniversary, Hello Burlington launched the 250th History Trail, a self-guided tour connecting the historic sites, museums, and landmarks that shaped the state. Revolutionary-era landmarks, early settlements, industrial mills, cultural institutions. You follow the trail at your own pace, check in at each stop through your phone, and piece together a story that most people only half-know. Sign up for the mobile pass and you're on your way. Just Vermont, in the places where it actually happened. One thing worth knowing: the trail itself is free, but it's not a pass for free admission. Some sites charge an entrance fee, others don't. Check each location's website before you go.
Closer to Burlington, a few stops stand out. Battery Park sits above the lake where a British naval attack was turned back in the summer of 1813. Easy to miss the history when you're watching the sunset, but it's there. The Ethan Allen Homestead offers a quieter version of Allen than the monument in Greenmount Cemetery might suggest: a modest Cape Cod farmhouse, a working farm, a man at the end of a very loud life. And for something genuinely unexpected, Richmond's Round Church is a sixteen-sided Federal-style meeting house built in 1812 and one of the only structures of its kind in North America.
The full list of sites, the History Trail sign-up, and a map of everything within reach are all on this page. 250 years is a long time. Burlington's been here for most of it.
