Crowley Cheese

Built in 1882 in tiny Healdville, Vermont by Winfield Crowley, the Crowley Cheese Factory, a National Historic Place, is believed to be the Western Hemisphere's oldest existing cheese factory. The building, owned today by 27 cheese-loving shareholders, looks very much the same as it did a century ago, housing equipment and featuring an unmechanized cheesemaking process that Mr. Crowley would still recognize.

The tiny plant produces only a few hundred pounds of cheese per day. Tours are available, and a shop sells the famous Crowley Cheese (technically a Colby, but made decades before Colby was created), as well as other local goods. Crowley Cheese is located in Healdville, Vermont, 20 miles south of Rutland.