A large complicated jigsaw puzzle in a window of the Maple Corner General Store entices customers and visitors alike to this busy center of activity in the village of Maple Corner. Customers often pause in their shopping to add a piece or two.
Now under the ownership of Orville and Audrey Ennis, this country store has been open continuously since 1900, when the business was started by George Mann in nearby Kents Corner. With the ending of the stage coach route through Kents Corner, the population center moved to Maple Corner and, with it, the newly opened store.
Sales slips, delivery records and account books from earlier days offer an interesting picture of the way business was conducted in country stores in those bygone times. Deliveries of customer orders, even at some distance from the store, were apparently common.
After the Maple Corner Store burned in the early 1940s, the business was taken over by the Adamant Cooperative Store, and a new and modern building still in use at Maple Corner was constructed. This made the Adamant Consumers Cooperative Grocery Store the first such cooperative in Vermont to open a branch business location. The enlarged business prospered under the general management of Clarence Fitch in Adamant, with Floyd tucker managing the Maple Corner operation. With the change in shopping habits that developed after WWII, coupled with better roads to the urban areas, the Adamant Cooperative management decided to sell the Maple Corner branch and it has been under private owners since.
This is a condensed version of the article appearing in Central Vermont Magazine Winter 1993 issue. For information onwhere to locate these magazines contact the chamber at 229-5711.
Thanks are extended to Earline Marsh, Alan Noyes, Elizabeth
Ralph, Sally Finn and Jack Belding for their time selecting and
editing Central Vermont Magazine articles for publication on the
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