Bakersfield, VT

Bakersfield is the primary village and CDP in the town of Bakersfield, Franklin County, with 347 residents at the 2020 census. Vermont Route 108 forms the village Main Street, running south toward Jeffersonville and north toward Enosburg Falls. The village stretches along a long north-south line, and that shape has been part of local life for a long time. Old town records even preserve arguments over where to put the town hall and school, because the middle of the village could not make everyone happy.

The best piece of Bakersfield history is South Academy, a brick school built in 1840. It later became St. George's Catholic Church, which served local families until 1996, when the building went to the Bakersfield Historical Society. Today the village is part of the Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union with five neighboring northern Vermont towns. Route 108, the old academy, and the town's long village shape give Bakersfield a distinctly Vermont feel without needing much decoration.