[4] It is also home to Castleton University, founded in 1787, and now part of the Vermont State Colleges system.

[citation needed] Castleton Village was settled in the early 1770s, and Main Street was laid out in 1772 as the principal east–west route in the region.

In 1775, the village is where Ethan Allen mustered the Green Mountain Boys for the Capture of Fort Ticonderoga, early in the American Revolutionary War.

[7] The town was prosperous in the 19th century because of the marble and slate industries, and benefited from the construction of two railroad lines in the 1850s.

Around the turn of the century the tourist industry, serving summer trade at Lake Bomoseen, resulted in the construction of hotels and other service facilities.