Derby Line: The Library Where the Border Runs Through the Reading Room

At the northern tip of Vermont, the town of Derby Line shares a street, and for over a century shared a front door, with the Canadian town of Stanstead, Quebec.

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House was built beginning in nineteen oh one, with the opera house opening in nineteen oh four and the library in nineteen oh five, straddling the international border, a deliberate gift to both communities from Martha Haskell and her son Horace, in memory of her late husband Carlos Haskell. The building sits in the United States; the main entrance faces Derby Line. But for one hundred twenty-one years, Canadians walked in without going through customs.

In twenty twenty-five, the United States restricted that access, citing border security concerns. Canada responded by opening a new entrance on the Quebec side. The library and its four-hundred-seat opera house continue to operate, shared between two countries, separated now by a door.