To conclude our encore presentation of last summer's joint project with the Billings Farm and Museum on Vermont's General Stores, commentator Tom Slayton looks at their survival - and their relevance - in today's Vermont.

All this week, we're revisiting last summer's tour of Vermont's General Stores, produced in partnership with the Billings Farm and Museum. Today, commentator Tom Slayton considers why general stores, once the center of village life in Vermont, eventually began to change and assume the mostly subsidiary role they play today.

VPR partnered last summer with the Billings Farm and Museum in a project designed to encourage the exploration of Vermont's working landscape and rural culture through our historic General Stores.  Today, we revisit commentator Tom Slayton's consideration of how they're a key part of Vermont's social history.

We're spending this week revisiting that iconic enterprise, The General Store, in a joint project with the Billings Farm and Museum of Woodstock.  Last summer, commentator Tom Slayton visited several, and discovered some ways to tell the truly historic stores from newer ones.  Here's his method.