Winooski is an old mill town built intentionally on a series of cascades on its namesake river that would power the mills. The textile mills both lifted the city up, and then let it fall when the industry went bust. The flood of 1927 was particularly harsh on business, when swells of rapid watery destruction decimated most of the buildings along the riverfront. The mills never recovered fully, and went from the state’s largest employer to limping along rather awkwardly until 1954 when they shuttered for good after no longer landing government contracts when new synthetic fibres became the future.

We stayed in Winooski with a cousin of the friend I was travelling with. Her apartment block was built in one of the old wooling mill buildings by the river, with the abandoned pump house remains scattered around outside, just waiting to be explored.