By Scott Wheeler

The traffic issue currently plaguing the Village of Derby Line is a serious problem that needs an answer. However, this isn’t the first time that the village has suffered from traffic tie-ups. This photo of a traffic jam headed north from Derby Center into the Village of Derby Line was taken before I-91 was built in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Traffic jams such as this one were a familiar sight in Derby Line in the days before the construction of I-91

Traffic problems in Derby Line have been in the news in recent months. It’s a problem that federal, state, and local officials have been working to correct. This isn’t the first time that traffic issues have plagued the border community.
Traffic tie ups were an all too common fact of life during the mid-20th century, so bad that the village formed a police department to help combat the problem.
That department was headed up by a gruff, but lovable and fair minded man by the name of Bert Curran. He wasn’t a heavy-handed enforcer; instead, he was a man who believed that most people were generally good people and deserved respect.

Burt Curran was the chief of the village’s police department.

A few years ago I sat down with Curran’s three daughters to better understand the villages police department and the man who headed it up – their father, Bert Curran.
A logger from the days of the big log drives, during World War II Curran wanted to do something to take part in the war effort. Too old to go to war, he became a security guard at Butterfields (now Tivoly), a tool manufacturer in Derby Line.
Born in Holland, Curran started his security job on June 1, 1942. He stayed on at the factory in various capacities until February 19, 1950. Sometime around the mid-1940s he also began working as the community’s only police officer. In time, he became the chief that oversaw four or five officers who joined the ranks of the department. Curran equipped his personal car with lights and a siren.

Some people today might wonder why such a small village would have a police department, especially as far back as the 1940s. Until Interstate 91 was built in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that serves as a bypass around the village, all the vehicles entering and exiting the country at Derby Line went right through the village, making the village a bustling community, but a community with a big traffic problem. The following article appears in the May 9, 1930 issue of the Newport Express and Standard:

Derby Line Heads List Handling Record Amount of Traffic According to Customs Report

Highway travel into the Vermont Customs district for the month of April more than doubted as compared with the corresponding period a year ago. Collector Harry C. Whitehill, in issuing his monthly report of such travel, states that 23,269 cars, carrying an aggregate of 69,184 passengers, were inspected at the various ports and stations in his district during the month. while only 11,166 cars, carrying 31,721 passengers were examined during April 1929. As compared with the record March of this year, the figures for April also show an increase of about 85 percent.
More than one-third of all the cars arriving in the district entered through the port of Derby Line, where 8,057 cars were examined during the month. The highway through Swanton was also a busy one during April, that station having reported the examination of 5,507 cars. Reports from other ports and stations in the district show that 2,497 cars were examined at Richford; 1,518 at North Troy; 1,481 at Canaan; 1,453 at Beecher Fall; 996 at Norton Mills; 800 at Alburg; 370 at West Bershire; 311 at East Richford; and 279 at ports on less frequented routes.
Indications of an early resumption of tourist travel are reflected in registration plates of outside states or of the various Canadian provinces, such visiting cars making up approximately forty-five percent of the cars entering the district during April The number of cars of Canadian registration recorded during the month was 7,871, and those from states outside of Vermont numbered 2,516, while the number of cars of Vermont registration was 12,882.