Stuck in Vermont: Digging Into the Ravine That Divided Burlington in the 1800s 

The serpentine ravine that bisected Burlington up until the end of the 19th century is the stuff of legend. It’s hard to imagine, but the city’s downtown was separated from the Hill Section by a deep gully with a stream running through it. It was most likely thousands of years old and more than a mile long.

From the Old North End, the gulch twisted across Pearl Street and through the downtown core — including where the Fletcher Free Library now stands — emptying into Lake Champlain south of Maple Street. Where the former VFW building and the Hood Plant parking lot are now, the ravine was about 25 to 35 feet deep and may have stretched as wide as a city block. Multiple bridges allowed people and carts to pass over the chasm.

As if this weren’t weird enough, in the 1850s the Vermont Central Railroad used the ravine as a train route to connect Burlington to its main line in Essex Junction. After the track was relocated in the early 1860s, the gully became an open sewer and garbage dump. In the 1870s, a brick-and-stone sewer was built in the gulch, and the area around it was filled in. But signs of the ravine remain, if you know where to look.

If you want to take a tour, visit King Street where it nose-dives like a roller coaster between South Winooski Avenue and lower Church Street. From the middle of the dip, you're basically standing where the ravine was. Look north to Main Street, and you will see a steep hill. To the south, the Hood Plant parking lot was once a large pond, and a precipitous hill along its southern edge shows the lip of the ravine.

Over the years, many people have become obsessed with documenting this unusual geologic feature that defined the Queen City’s early history. The ravine attracts cultlike interest, and local historians have dug into its secrets.

Recently there has been a lot of literal digging, too. As part of its Great Streets Initiative, the Department of Public Works is rerouting the flow of the approximately 150-year-old ravine sewer. This much-needed infrastructure work will allow for aboveground improvements in the next few years.

In her latest episode of “Stuck in Vermont,” Seven Days senior multimedia producer Eva Sollberger joined the ravine-obsessed. She toured the area with engineer and self-described “map geek” Hugo Martínez Cazón and pored over old maps with Jeffrey Marshall, library professor emeritus, at the University of Vermont’s Silver Special Collections. She viewed two portions of the recently uncovered sewer with DPW senior engineer Laura Wheelock and, with DPW director Chapin Spencer, examined some of the historic bottles that have been unearthed during this massive project. She even climbed to the top of the College Street Congregational Church steeple to get a bird’s-eye view.

Music: E’s Jammy Jams, “The Entertainer,” Composed by Scott Joplin

Nat Keefe & Hot Buttered Rum, “Waltz in Low Light”

This episode of Stuck in Vermont was supported by New England Federal Credit Union.

This story was updated on April 14, 2024, to correct the date when the ravine existed.