Fort Ethan Allen: Vermont's Cavalry Post
Near Burlington, Vermont
On the town line between Colchester and Essex, Vermont, a collection of handsome brick buildings from the eighteen nineties tells the story of when the United States Army still trained on horseback.
Fort Ethan Allen was established in eighteen ninety-four as a cavalry post, named for the Green Mountain Boys leader who captured Fort Ticonderoga at the start of the Revolution. Cavalry forts required not just barracks but stables, parade grounds, farrier shops, and officer housing, and the Army built all of it here with the permanent brick architecture that signaled long-term intent.
The fort trained soldiers through two world wars before the Army closed it in nineteen forty-four, by which time horse soldiers had given way entirely to mechanized infantry. Rather than disappear, the installation became what locals call simply The Fort: a Vermont National Guard installation alongside businesses, apartments, and Saint Michael's College. The historic district was recognized on the National Register of Historic Places, preserving one of the best-intact examples of late nineteenth-century Army post planning in New England.
