Category: Lee J. Kahrs

BRANDON — The polished but ancient wood floors creaked with familiarity last Saturday as old friends and customers stopped by the Briggs Carriage Bookstore in downtown Brandon one last time.

Erin Keyes, 18, considers Briggs an integral part of her life. Having grown up in Brandon, some of Keyes’s earliest memories are set in the bookstore.

“Just seeing something I’ve grown up with end, it’s like part of my childhood going away,” she said, as she sat in the bench nook of the children’s section with her mom, Laura King.

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BRANDON — Sixteen emus on a farm in Brandon have died in what is Vermont’s first documented case of Eastern Equine Encephalitis.

Area veterinarian Keely Henderson sent brain tissue and blood samples from the dead emus to a University of New Hampshire lab last Wednesday, Sept. 21, and the results were received late next day.

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BURLINGTON — Brandon’s historic downtown is more or less intact despite the massive Aug. 28 flood, but there are historic villages across Vermont that have been irreparably damaged, like those in Wilmington and Waterbury.

“Wilmington’s downtown was decimated,” said Paul Bruhn, executive director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont. “There are storefronts, one after another, that just aren’t there anymore.”

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BRANDON — The Brandon Congregational Church bells were ringing at 5 p.m. last Friday as Route 7 through downtown Brandon was re-opened to traffic a mere 122 hours after floodwaters scourged the road.

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