10 years ago:

Wilmington Old Home Week kicked off with a hay ride, bonfire, and beanhole dinner with old time fiddlin’ at the Adams Farm.

An unusually rainy summer seasons hampered a number of projects around the valley, including an number of road construction projects. Inns and local retailers said business was below average levels thanks to the dreary conditions. But the local bowling alley and businesses that rent movies were reporting above average business, as locals and visitors flocked to indoor activities.

15 years ago:

SKI Ltd. named Chris Diamond senior operating officer of Killington and Mount Snow/Haystack ski areas. Diamond, who served as president of Mount Snow for a number of years, had left only a year earlier to lead SKI’s corporate development department. At the time, SKI had just acquired Haystack, Waterville Valley, and Sugarloaf.

“Vision 2000 + 10,” a group of local business leaders, began meeting to chart the valley’s course into the 21st century. The group planned a joint meeting with local selectboards for a discussion on the valley’s future.

Mount Snow opened the Merrell Hiking Center. For the price of $10, hikers could ride a chairlift to the top of Mount Snow and take a guided hike along trails covering Mount Snow and Haystack.

20 years ago:

Wilmington’s Old Home Week celebration included a roast beef banquet for 300 people. Other festivities included Civil War reenactments at the New England Plantation (Howe Farm), boat rides on Lake Whitingham, a rock concert and dance on the tennis courts at Baker Field, and tours of historic houses.

Taittingers opened in Wilmington. Bird feeders of all types were a specialty, along with country gifts, woolens, and antiques.

25 years ago:

Village Development Corporation of Vermont broke ground on their new condominium development, Greensprings, described as a “low density townhouse project on 65 acres” on Route 100. Developers planned to build 138 townhomes “designed to look like Vermont with a colonial architectural vernacular.” Prices started at $140,000.

Doc Watson and Baby Watson Brothers appeared at Memorial Hall for Mount Snow’s Concert Series.

30 years ago:

Marlboro Selectboard members were angered by what they called a failure of the state to adequately meet the needs of small towns in planning for an emergency at Vermont Yankee. The town’s civil defense coordinator noted that the state failed to deliver protective clothing and sent the town damaged radioactivity detectors. Residents at the meeting said the state’s plan was “so absurd that it might as well be a fairy tale.”

40 years ago:

In response to a suggestion that the president appoint a cabinet-level marketing secretary to “promote the nation’s positive qualities,” Deerfield Valley News contributor Amelia Piper said “I can see it now, some hip character right out of “Putney Swope,” with horn-rimmed glasses and a madras suit saying ‘Hey Prez, baby, I’ve got this outasight gimmick. You and Mrs. Nixon and the girls can dress up like the Spirit of ’76 and visit all of the college campuses just in time for the half time of the fall football season and…” Putney Swope was a 1969 comedy about an advertising firm, written, and directed by Robert Downey Sr., and starring Arnold Johnson as the character Swope.