Wal-Mart Opens In Vermont; Retailer Now In All 50 States

BENNINGTON, Vt. - After a five-year battle with local environmentalists, Wal-Mart today officially opened its first store in Vermont - and can finally claim it has stores in all 50 states.

But it's the opponents who are claiming victory.

To fit their 2,158th store into rustic Bennington, Wal-Mart planners abandoned their usual formula - a new building of 100,000- to 200,000-square-feet near highway exit ramps. Instead, the country's newest Wal-Mart is located in downtown Bennington, in a building of 50,000 square feet once occupied by an F.W. Woolworth's store.

"The Bennington location is a good-faith response to our concerns of location and scale," says Paul Bruhn, director of the Preservation Trust of Vermont, an organization that opposed the company's move into the state.