The Proctor Maple Research Center is located on 180 acres (73 ha) of land on the western slope of Mount Mansfield. The facilities of the center are located on a spur road off Harvey Road, and its actively managed stand of sugar maples is located north of its small cluster of buildings. Its main laboratory building was built in 1988 and expanded in 1994. Nearby stands the center's current sugar house, built in 1992–93, as well as its original sugar house, built in 1947.
History
Since at least the second half of the 19th century, this property was used as a sugar bush, or property actively managed for the production of maple sap from sugar maples. It was purchased by the Harvey family in 1873, whose uses of the land included sugarmaking. The property was acquired by Mortimer Proctor, then the Governor of Vermont, and was given by him to the state to further its research into a product that was important to the state's economy. The early field station was little more than a sugar house, mounted on skids until a suitable permanent site was located. A laboratory was added in the mid-1960s, which burned down in the 1980s.[2]
