For nearly three decades, thousands of people traveled to a small Vermont town to bet on thoroughbreds, harness horses and eventually greyhounds. Today, a vintage matchcover provides a tiny reminder of the racetrack that once helped keep an entire community alive.
There was a time when a trip north on U.S. Route 7 from Massachusetts brought you to something rather unexpected.
Just across the Vermont line, in the small town of Pownal, stood a modern racetrack surrounded by the mountains of southern Vermont.
It was called Green Mountain Park.
The track promoted itself as a destination for racing fans, with thoroughbred and harness racing, a rooftop restaurant, closed-circuit television, escalator and elevator service and plenty of parking.
For a little while, it must have seemed as though Pownal had landed something extraordinary.
It had.
But the story of Green Mountain Park would ultimately become about much more than horse racing.
A Racetrack Rises from a Vermont Cornfield
Green Mountain Park was constructed on what had been farmland along the Hoosic River.
On May 24, 1963, Vermont’s first pari-mutuel racetrack opened for business.
The expectations were enormous.
Approximately 12,000 people were expected for the inaugural thoroughbred program. Instead, only about 4,700 showed up. The betting handle was roughly half of the anticipated $400,000.
It was an ominous beginning.
Within weeks, employees were reportedly being laid off and purses were reduced. Management changed the post time from afternoon to twilight racing.
Then came another idea:
Race at night.
There was a problem. The facility hadn’t been fully lighted for nighttime thoroughbred racing.
Additional light towers were hurriedly installed, and by late June the horses were running beneath the lights.
Business improved.
Green Mountain Park had survived its first crisis.
Horses Under the Vermont Mountains
The setting was certainly distinctive.
Green Mountain’s thoroughbred oval measured 13/16 of a mile and featured an unusually long 1,106-foot stretch.
A surviving promotional postcard described the track as offering racing in a setting of “unsurpassed beauty.”
That part wasn’t simply advertising.
Pownal sits in the Hoosic Valley at Vermont’s southwestern corner, only a short distance from both Massachusetts and New York. Green Mountain Park therefore had access to racing fans from three states.
But geography also created a problem.
Just over 40 miles away was one of the most famous names in American horse racing:
Saratoga.
Competing against an institution like Saratoga was never going to be easy.
Green Mountain experimented.
Thoroughbreds were joined by harness racing. In 1968, the track gained an important competitive advantage when it became the first East Coast track to offer Sunday racing.
For a time, Sunday racing helped.
Then neighboring states began permitting it too.
Green Mountain had lost another advantage.
The Racetrack Becomes Part of Pownal
The significance of Green Mountain Park cannot be measured simply by attendance or betting handle.
For Pownal, the track became an economic engine.
People needed places to stay.
They needed food.
They needed gasoline.
Horses needed care. Employees needed housing. Seasonal workers needed services.
Restaurants, bars, markets, motels, boarding houses, cottages, repair shops, retailers, farms and other businesses benefited from the activity surrounding the track.
The employment extended far beyond jockeys and trainers. Local histories describe work for cooks, waitresses, farriers, babysitters, tradesmen, laborers and many others.
By 1976, Green Mountain Park reportedly accounted for 22 percent of the Town of Pownal’s tax revenue.
That is an extraordinary number.
A racetrack that had struggled almost from opening day had nevertheless become deeply woven into the economic life of its community.
The Rooney Family Arrives
In December 1972, Green Mountain Park changed hands.
The buyers were the five sons of Art Rooney, founder and owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Rooney family was hardly new to racing. Its interests included other racetracks around the country.
The purchase reportedly cost approximately $8.6 million.
Improvements were made, but Green Mountain continued to struggle.
Horse racing itself was changing. Competition was increasing. The track needed another source of revenue.
Vermont lawmakers provided one.
Greyhound racing came to Green Mountain.
When Green Mountain Went to the Dogs
The introduction of greyhounds transformed the identity of the track.
For a period during the 1970s, Green Mountain hosted thoroughbreds, harness horses and greyhounds.
On September 24, 1976, the track attracted national attention by becoming the first American racetrack to host all three types of racing at the same venue during a single calendar year.
But the distinction also marked the end of an era.
Horse racing disappeared from Green Mountain Park.
The dogs remained.
For people who remembered Green Mountain as a horse track, the change must have been striking. The beautiful Vermont racing facility built around thoroughbreds had become primarily a greyhound operation.
And yet the track continued to employ people and bring visitors into Pownal.
It remained part of the town.
Until it wasn’t.
The Last Race
Green Mountain Park’s final greyhound racing season came in 1992.
The gates closed.
The crowds disappeared.
And Pownal immediately felt the loss.
Businesses that had depended upon the people attracted by the racetrack struggled. Some eventually closed. Jobs disappeared not merely from Green Mountain itself, but throughout the small economy that had grown around it.
For nearly thirty years, the racetrack had been generating activity in a community that otherwise had relatively few large economic engines.
Now there was an enormous empty racetrack beside Route 7.
And nobody quite knew what to do with it.
From Racehorses to Rock Music
Closing day wasn’t quite the end of Green Mountain Park.
The enormous property found occasional new uses.
Most remarkably, on July 9, 1996, the former racetrack became a stop on Lollapalooza, the massive touring alternative-rock festival.
For one day, a facility constructed for racehorses was filled with a very different crowd.
Later came antique automobile events and a succession of redevelopment proposals.
Plans were discussed.
Developers came and went.
But the grand vision that would give Green Mountain Park a permanent second life never arrived.
Instead, the enormous grandstand slowly deteriorated.
Vegetation grew.
Windows broke.
The place that had once attracted thousands of racing fans became an abandoned landmark.
Fire at Green Mountain
Late on the night of September 16, 2020, fire broke out in the old grandstand.
Firefighters from Vermont, Massachusetts and New York responded.
There was little they could do to save it.
By the following day, the enormous building was considered a total loss.
Authorities described the fire as suspicious.
After decades of racing, years of redevelopment proposals and nearly three decades of abandonment, the most recognizable physical reminder of Green Mountain Park was gone.
What a Matchcover Remembers
And that brings us to the small object that started this story.
A matchcover.
When Green Mountain Park was operating, nobody would have regarded one of its matchcovers as an important historical document.
It was advertising.
You picked it up at a restaurant, bar, hotel or racetrack.
You used the matches.
You threw it away.
But decades later, something changes.
The racetrack is gone.
The grandstand is gone.
Many of the businesses that depended upon it are gone.
Some of the people who worked there are gone.
And suddenly that little piece of cardboard isn’t merely advertising anymore.
It says:
Green Mountain Park
Pownal, Vermont
And behind those few words is the story of a racetrack built in a cornfield that brought thoroughbreds to Vermont, experimented with racing under the lights, hosted harness horses and greyhounds, attracted the Rooney family, helped support a small town, became a rock-concert venue and ultimately disappeared in a spectacular fire.
That’s why these old matchcovers fascinate us.
Sometimes the smallest artifacts preserve remarkably large stories.