Lost Mural Project Creates A Unique Interactive Digital Map of Burlington’s Immigrant History

BURLINGTON, VERMONT, July 2026 The Lost Mural Project, an organization dedicated to preserving and interpreting a rare early-20th-century synagogue mural, will soon launch a unique interactive database of Burlington’s Old North End, highlighting immigrant homes and businesses from 1850 to 1950. Titled the Intersections Mapping Program, the website and its interactive map have been funded in part by a Vermont Certified Local Government grant.

The Lost Mural Project has been working for the last six months with a graphic artist and local college students to research and create an interactive website that will allow users to connect with stories and events from Burlington’s Old North End. The project uses a wide range of historical documents – federal census data, Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, Burlington City Directories with street addresses of homes and businesses – along with Google Maps to produce an illustrated history of Burlington’s immigrant-rich Old North End neighborhood through the decades. When complete, the website will be easily navigable by anyone interested in exploring the history of Burlington, including teachers, students, researchers, and the general public.

The Lost Mural Project’s previous research mapped Jewish homes and businesses in 1926 in Burlington’s “Little Jerusalem,” a concentrated Jewish community in the Old North End around the turn of the twentieth century. The Intersections Mapping Program displays Burlington’s Jewish, French-Canadian, Irish, and Italian communities at ten-year intervals between 1850 and 1950. For each year, a map with colored icons will indicate homes, businesses, religious institutions, and fraternal and social organizations, along with occupants’ and owners’ names and countries of origin. With additional funding, a future phase of the project would add more immigrant community groups to the Intersections mapping database.

The Intersections Mapping Program will invite contributions to the website from the general public. Those with historical documents or photographs of their family’s roots in the Old North End will be able to submit their information for inclusion in its database.

The Intersections Mapping Program will start soliciting photo and document contributions from the public on July 11, 2026, at the City of Burlington’s Spotlight Vermont event celebrating America’s 250th birthday, 11am-2pm at City Hall Park. A QR code will direct contributors to an online form where they can submit their photos and documents. The Lost Mural Project is seeking additional donors, and is particularly interested in businesses or organizations who would like to be listed as sponsors on the project website. Those with their own immigrant roots in the Old North End are especially welcome to get involved. Donations for the Lost Mural Project’s programs, including the mapping project, can be made directly here: https://www.lostmural.org/donate.

The Lost Mural Project preserves and interprets a rare and important example of early 20th century Jewish Art (“The Lost Mural”) painted by an immigrant for a Vermont immigrant community, and uses this singular and powerful artifact to explore the contributions of indigenous and immigrant communities which have created Vermont’s broad cultural heritage.