Hood's Crossing / Frank Niquette Development

In 1849, the Vermont Central Railroad was built through Winooski, crossing East Allen Street. The street followed a late-18th-century road connecting Burlington and the village of Winooski Falls to hamlets and farms in Essex. The village was established in the 1770s and grew in the 19th century around mills at the natural falls of the Winooski River, an area significant to Native people. Albert O. Hood, a station agent for the railroad and druggist who developed and sold patent medicines, and his wife Betsey bought a large brick house in 1863 on a rise east of the railroad crossing. Their family occupied the house until 1919. Although the Hood House no longer stands, the railroad crossing has long been known as Hood’s Crossing.

see other side

The land around the Hood House was largely rural until the 1920s, when Winooski’s population grew with the prosperity of the mills during World War I and the incorporation of the city in 1922. To meet a new demand for housing, local grocer Frank Niquette purchased the 13-acre Hood property in 1925, creating a subdivision of 67 building lots on streets named for the Hood family (Hood Street, Whitney Street), and Frank’s wife Alma’s family (Manseau Street). The neighborhood followed trends of suburban development from the 1920s through 1940s with single-family houses built from standardized plans on uniform lots with freestanding garages marking the growing popularity of the automobile during this era.