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is a town in Rutland County, Vermont, United States. The population was 2,535 at the 2000 census. The town center, located in the south central portion of the town and where about 89% of the population resides, is a defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place (CDP). The town is part of the Rutland micropolitan NECTA.
The town of Rutland was originally granted in 1761 as one of the New Hampshire Grants and named after Rutland, Massachusetts, the home of the first grantee, John Murrey. It was one of the most successful of those grants because of excellent farmland and gentle topography.
In the early 1800s, small high-quality marble deposits were discovered in Rutland, and in the 1830s a large deposit of nearly solid marble of high quality was found in what is now West Rutland. By the 1840s small firms had begun operations, but marble quarries only became profitable when the railroad arrived in 1851. At the same time, the famous quarries of Carrara in Tuscany, Italy, became largely unworkable because of their extreme depth, and Rutland quickly became one of the leading producers of marble in the world.
This fueled enough growth and investment that in 1886 the marble companies saw to it that when the present Rutland City was incorporated, most of the remainder of the village was split off as West Rutland and Proctor. Although the closing of the marble quarries in the area in the 1980s and 1990s cost the town many jobs, West Rutland has attracted artists and families looking for a semi-rural lifestyle. Because it is a very rural town, much of its economy is dependent on the city of Rutland.