Locustville Pond provides warm-weather enjoyment for Hopkinton residents, but in mid-winter solitude is in ample supply.

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The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

Our day begins, as do those of so many in Hope Valley, with a stop at West’s Bakery, where the bismarks are perfection.

It is 8:15 a.m. on a recent Friday — too late, it turns out, for the political talk that animates the place at 7. “Republicans on one side, Democrats on the other, neutrals in the middle,” says Dorothy Gardiner, sitting at the counter where she’s been chatting with Georgia Ure.

But not too late for a good cup of coffee, or to buy bismarks, those long raised doughnuts that are sliced lengthwise, then filled with a thin layer of raspberry jelly and a thick, rich one of beautifully piped whipped cream. As far as I know, West’s is the only place in Rhode Island where you can get them, and I’m under strict orders from my wife, who’s long been a fan, to bring some home.

Still, I’m not in Hope Valley just for the bismarks, though they would be ample reason for the trip. I’m here for the second part of my tour of the town of Hopkinton.

Hope Valley is only one of 16 villages in Hopkinton, where’s so much to see that when I was here on a get-acquainted trip in December, I barely got out of Ashaway, in the town’s southern end. That dismayed my guide, former Town Councilman Scott Bill Hirst, and before I left I promised him I’d return to see the north, including Hope Valley.

Now I’m back, and Hirst and I are joined by local historian Hope Greene Andrews, an energetic woman with a thick head of curly white hair whose midnight-blue corduroy pants sport little embroidered scarlet cardinals.

ANDREWS HAD LIVED all her life in the village before she recently took up residence at her beach cottage at Quonochontaug, in neighboring Charlestown, so she could pass on her 19th-century Hope Valley house to her granddaughter. “I’ve given it to her with my life in it,” Andrews says — all those family heirlooms that make a house a home. And now that family home is also the residence of her first great-granddaughter, born Jan. 5 — “Eleanor Hope, named after me.”

It was Andrews’ great-great- grandfather, Capt. Gardner Nichols, who long ago renamed the place, which had been called Carpenter’s Mills. “ ‘We’ll call it Hope Valley,’ ” she recites, “ ‘because all my hopes are centered here.’ ”

Over the years, she has become Hope Valley’s tireless advocate, giving speeches, spending a decade helping to organize historical papers in the public library’s basement archive, and now working on a book about the village. To take me around, she has even given up her normal water-aerobics class for the day.

In fact, it’s Andrews — “Hopie” to many of those we’ll bump into today — who has driven the three of us here from the nearby Park and Ride in Richmond’s Wyoming village, where we rendezvoused. Her sporty forest-green Pontiac G6 has a “panoramic roof,” essentially a sun roof with a huge opening — a proper replacement when her beloved hard-top convertible proved so rusty under its still-shiny paint that it couldn’t be saved. She loves to drive the G6 with the roof open, so her yellow Lab can enjoy the breeze, and “the wind blows through my white hair.”

Later she’ll give me a taste of what that’s like — a brief but chilly buffeting on a day when the temperature starts at 18 degrees and never rises above 34.

“I’m a good driver,” she says, “even though I’m 81.”

She and Hirst will take me to see a surrealist’s art studio and a dairy farm, Rhode Island’s longest-serving fire chief and a place where they still make linen calendar towels. We’ll visit a barbershop where haircuts cost only $7, a sophisticated outdoors store and the grandmother of country-music singer Billy Gilman.

For now, though, we’re inside, in the cheerful country-print atmosphere of West’s, with its original pressed-tin ceiling painted that same forest green. West’s, Georgia Ure is saying, is a kind of unofficial town center in the morning. “Farmers, lawyers, doctors, the millionaire and the person on welfare sit here and talk to each other. … I’ve met ’em all, here at the bakery counter.”

Ure is a serious-looking woman whose demeanor grows warmer the longer we talk. And she certainly feels warmly toward West’s.

“It is the center of all knowledge,” she says. It’s where she found out the best place to buy a new washing machine, and where you can learn how to deal with an oil spill in your home. “I can hook up with an electrician, a carpenter and a plumber in the morning, and have ’em working on my house by afternoon.

“It’s better than the Internet. It’s real, and it’s right here.”

ANDREWS, WHO HAS pointed out lots of local landmarks along our brief ride — the Catholic church, the 1841 First Baptist with its 14 stained-glass windows, a pair of Grange halls — is trying to show me a plastic sleeve full of historic photos, many of them views of buildings long vanished. But it’s hard for me to focus on Andrews, who sits on my left at the horseshoe-shaped counter. Right now, I’m learning from Ure, at my right.

“Hope Valley was once a bustling metropolis, because of the mills,” says Ure, who at 61 shares Andrews’ interest in local history. In the early part of the 20th century, Ure says, auto magnate Henry Ford even considered the village as the site for a factory.

Then the hurricane of 1938 took down the elm trees. And one by one, fire destroyed most of the mills, which had stood as tall as four stories.

“If the mills were here today, we’d look like New York City,” she says.

“That’s why there was such a demise in Hope Valley,” adds Andrews. “ ‘Hopeless Valley,’ and so forth.”

It’s the kind of slur Andrews despises, though there’s another she seems to hate even more: “Illiterate woodchopper.” It was the way the late Maj. Lionel J. Benjamin, then second in command of the Rhode Island State Police, referred to the people of Hope Valley in 1981. The comment became public during a 1986 lawsuit, and the fact that she brings it up now shows that it still rankles, more than two decades later.

“But we just made the best of that,” says Andrews. “With Yankee ingenuity. We made sweatshirts, and made money off it.”

The shirts (actually T-shirts, according to Journal files), and matching hats, said “iliterit woodchoppers,” with the misspelling deliberate. Hope Valley Fire Chief Fred Stanley sold a passel of them at his Spring Street Market, and the profits — $500, a tidy sum at the time — went to the Literacy Volunteers of Rhode Island.

STANLEY, THE state’s longest-serving fire chief, is still at his post, and we will meet him today. In fact, we need to be on our way to our next stop. Hirst pays for the coffee, repaying me for the cookies I’d sprung for when we toured Ashaway. I buy a half-dozen bismarks, and Andrews gets a couple for herself. Whenever she gets back to Hope Valley from Quonochontaug, she says, she picks some up.

We head down the block, where Louis Cimalore, better known as Lou the barber, is giving a haircut to gray-haired Walter Spencer. In the kind of coincidence that will repeat itself all day, Hirst went to school with Spencer’s son; Andrews’ mother, Annie Greene, was Spencer’s teacher.

It’s Cimalore’s barber shop, with its half-dozen chairs crowded into a narrow storefront, that offers the $7 haircut. “He just went up from $6 to $7,” says Hirst, “but it’s still a good deal.”

The shop has been featured in a cartoon by Chariho High grad Don Bousquet — Cimalore keeps a laminated color photocopy to show to visitors. It’s the kind of place where a sign on the wall still offers “Ajax Unbreakable Pocket Combs, $1.”

In the barber’s chair, the chat is of health issues and the vagaries of time.

“This town has changed, hasn’t it?” says Spencer, 79. He used to know everyone around, he says; now there are “new roads, new people, new developments.”

“You go to Stop & Shop,” Andrews agrees, “and you don’t know anybody.”

WE WALK ACROSS Depot Square, so called because it once housed the depot of the Wood River Branch Railroad. A park is planned for part of the square, and on the spot where the depot once stood is the firehouse of the Hope Valley-Wyoming Fire District, where Fred Stanley is starting his 44th year as chief.

He’s only the fourth chief in the history of the district, founded in 1942; the first was his grandfather, Arthur Stanley, who held the post for three years before giving it up so he could take his wife to Florida in the winters for her arthritis.

We talk for a minute, and I admire a knit Kleenex-box cover in the shape of a fire truck that sits on a table in Stanley’s office. Then we head back through the square and across to H.C. Woodmansee & Son, where white-haired, close-cropped Ginger Woodmansee — “Nobody knows me as Virginia,” she says — is having a quick smoke outside in the brisk air.

“It’s cold out hee-uh,” she says, with the South County accent you hear from many Hope Valleyites. “Do you want to come in and warm up?”

Woodmansee’s, located in a onetime Odd Fellows hall, is an oil company, the kind of place where they also sell all sorts of other stuff — stackable fireproof safes, wall furnaces, even TVs. Times are tough in the oil business, with prices high and customers struggling to pay.

“We grab the mail and head to the bank,” she says, hoping that checks deposited will keep up with the bills.

But the company has been in business for 84 years, though not all at this location. Woodmansee’s father-in-law, Howard “Howdy” Woodmansee, who once danced in minstrel shows, founded it. Ginger and her husband of 52 years, Clifton “Gussie” Woodmansee — the “Son” of the company’s name — are the current proprietors. And “now my son is working here,” says the 75-year-old mother. It’s Cliffie who will provide the next generation of leadership.

The décor is spartan, but it features several photos of Woodmansee’s grandson, 19-year-old country singer Billy Gilman, who still lives in the village. In fact, he’s heading to Virginia as we speak, to make an appearance for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, of which he is national youth chairman.

“For nothing,” his grandmother says cheerfully — it’s one more in a series of unpaid appearances on the charity’s behalf. But that’s all right. “Keeps his feet on the ground, anyway.”

BACK UP Main Street, past West’s and a little farther, is Ure Outfitters, the outdoors store Georgia Ure founded in 1985 in the abandoned Locustville Mill.

The one-story mill was an eyesore when she began, she says. “I told my husband, ‘I bought myself a Christmas present. I bought the old mill downtown.’ And he about had a heart attack.”

Only once she owned the mill, she said, did she try “to figure out a use for it. I had about six plans, and this was number five.” She gutted the place and went to work remodeling.

Now, stuffed moose and deer heads, bears and beavers look out over carefully arranged displays of sleeping bags and bird feeders, kayaks and vests, duck decoys and insulated boots. The effect is strikingly like the feel of the flagship store of L.L. Bean, the retailing institution in Freeport, Maine.

“That’s probably where I stole it from,” she says when the comparison is offered to her. She’s walking briskly toward the rear of the store, her back to me as I try to keep pace, and it’s impossible to tell whether she’s smiling.

Ure, who grew up in Ashaway, is also a real-estate agent, and has been involved in town government, too. She’s been chair of the Charter Commission (“The top vote-getter in town,” notes Hirst); Hopkinton’s first recreation director, putting into practice her master’s thesis from URI (“It was a five-year plan, I implemented it in three years, and I quit,” she says); and a frequent critic of public spending, leader of a 1996 tax revolt.

“It was hard times,” she says. “Looks like we’re coming into them again.”

She leads us to her adjoining office, in another part of the mill, with a beautiful view overlooking Locustville Pond and the dam that holds it in.

“It’s hard when you’re in business,” and want to take part in government, she says; there are always concerns about conflict of interest. But, she says, “I try to be involved. Can’t afford not to be. I have a lot invested in the town.

“More than just money. My family.”

Speaking of which, her husband, Wayne, recovered from his shock over her purchase of the building, she says. “He likes the mill better than I do now.”

WE DRIVE PAST more local landmarks — the birthplace of Prudence Crandall, Connecticut’s state heroine, who founded the first school for black girls; the Nichols & Langworthy Machine Co., Capt. Gardner Nichols’ place, which in 1876 built a steam yacht and sent it to Philadelphia for the Centennial Exposition.

We stop at the Main Street home and art gallery of Carl “Rick” Devin, another former town councilman, and a former member of the Chariho Regional School Committee. “Thankless job,” he says with a half-smile.

We peek into his tiny studio, where little figures with blue faces and white robes, arms outstretched, stand on a drafting table. It’s a work in progress, and clearly the best-organized part of a cluttered workspace.

“This is my chaos,” says Devin, 62. “You’ve heard of order in chaos?”

In the adjoining showroom are Devin’s beautifully surrealistic paintings and sculptures — a cat’s face set in a watch face, on the background of a human body; a piece of fruit emerging like a torso from four-inch-high blue pants in a work called Pear of Jeans. They’re not what you might expect to find in a state whose artists often tend toward landscapes and crashing waves.

But Devin, who moved from Philadelphia to Narragansett in 1982, and to Hopkinton a couple of years later, is no Sunday painter. He was co-director of last year’s Wickford Art Festival, Rhode Island’s most prestigious art show, and is part of a flourishing local art community. His was one of 30 studios in Hopkinton and neighboring communities that saw hundreds of visitors in October, during the second annual HopArts open-studio tour. And he draws his inspiration from beyond his immediate surroundings.

“Sometimes you’ll just hear a phrase,” he says. “I’ve been toying with that ‘pear of jeans’ for years.”

THERE’S MORE, much more, enough for several more columns.

•We stop at the headquarters of Wood-Pawcatuck Watershed Association, in its striking location on the bank of the beautiful Wood River, just above the Barberville Dam. The half-century-old former home is so close to the water that wetland regulations today would forbid its construction.

The group’s mission is to guard the Wood, “the most pristine river in the state,” says program director Denise Poyer. “It’s like a jewel that the state has. It should be preserved.”

•We enter the Langworthy Public Library through the basement door, passing the archive, where a group of home-schooled families is holding an event that seems to involve games and a lot of fun.

Upstairs, on the first floor, director and children’s librarian Martha McCabe takes me to the back so I can see the “$2-million view” from the non-fiction room, with its walls of knotty pine. It’s Locustville Pond as seen through a good-sized picture window, indeed a lovely sight.

McCabe, who married her husband, Jack, at the village’s St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church 25 years ago, has only had this job since August, when she came here from a library in North Kingstown. It’s been interesting since her return, she says, “to see how much had changed, and how little had changed.”

Some buildings and people are different, of course. But Hope Valley, she says, is still a place where “people walk the streets and talk to each other.”

•We drive up Skunk Hill Road, where Andrews’ daughter once learned to cook, sew and raise animals as part of a 4H group called the Skunk Hill Stinkers. Here we find Kay Dee Designs, which has been making linen towels and calendars since 1951. It’s one of the last remaining textile operations in the area.

Its line now includes dishtowels and potholders decorated with wine bottles, coffee cups and roosters — 2,000 items in all, sold in 5,000 gift and home goods stores — though some of it now comes from factories in other parts of the world.

But Kay Dee still makes the calendar towels that once were a staple of kids’ fundraising efforts. And, company president Rick Rakauskas tells us, hundreds of people still show up every year for a “yard sale” held each Thursday, Friday and Saturday in October.

•We head for George and Dorothy Reynolds’ Brook Knoll Farm, one of the last dairy farms in town now that Wheeler’s Farm is a golf course and condos. Part of the farm is now meant to be included in a proposed movie studio at Exit 2 off Route 95, which runs through the property.

The Reynolds place has been a topic of discussion in town for another reason recently, too: neighbors complained about the smell of manure George Reynolds stored to use as fertilizer. The scent lingers faintly in the air.

Reynolds is busy with heavy machinery he’s driving, but when he sees we’re in the driveway the gray-bearded farmer, clad in parka, high waders and work gloves, comes over to find out what we’re up to.

“We’re proud of our dairy farms,” Andrews tells him.

“Weren’t too proud about three weeks ago, when my name was in the paper,” Reynolds answers.

Hirst tells him he’d called to offer his support — had Reynolds’ sister given him the message?

Reynolds acknowledges that Hirst most likely did call. Then he shrugs. “It’s what happens when you’re trying to do something more economically rational than using artificial fertilizer,” he says.

“You’ve got backers as well, don’t forget that,” Andrews says.

“Oh, I know,” Reynolds says. When he’s out driving around town, “people wave at me. That feels good.”

Despite the headaches — the hard work, the price of supplies that always seems to outstrip the price of milk — he’s been farming all of his 60 years, and he loves it. He loves the community, too, although there are these new neighbors. “They come in, they want to change it. They want to tell you how to live.”

Still, after a horrible 2007 — “probably the worst we ever had, with the price of milk” — this year prices are holding their own, and he’s feeling more optimistic.

“Have a good year, George,” Hirst tells him as we leave.

“Gotta be better than last year,” Reynolds says, and he smiles.

WE FINISH UP our tour at a former town dump at the end of Stubtown Road, a fenced-off and surrealistic scene where pipes stick up through the earth — to let off gases, Andrews says — and flowering bushes poke their heads up through mounds of dirt. They’re teazle plants, she thinks; their pods, she says, were once used in making yarn.

It’s an odd, interesting melding of the modern and the timeless, not unlike the village itself.

I carry the image with me as Andrews drives us back to the Wyoming Park and Ride. We’ve been going nonstop, it’s 2:30 p.m. and I need to get to the office. I rescue my bismarks from Andrews’ trunk and get into my car.

I haven’t had lunch, and it’s a half-hour trip to Wakefield, where our news bureau is. I can’t resist. I open the box and take one out.

It’s every bit as good as I remember, fresh and creamy and sweet. This will be a satisfying, if not exactly nutritious, meal.

Hirst and Andrews are still chatting in the parking lot as I drive away.

IF YOU GO TO HOPE VALLEY:

•West’s Bakery, 995 Main St., (401) 539-2451. Closed for vacation until Feb. 28. Then Thursday through Saturday 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday 6 to 1.

•Ure Outfitters, 1009 Main St., (401) 539-4050, www.ureoutfitters.com. Monday through Saturday 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Sunday 9 to 5.

•Langworthy Public Library, 24 Spring St., (401) 539-2851, www.langworthylibrary.org. Monday and Wednesday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday 4 to 8 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 10 to 2.

•Rick Devin, 1054 Main St., Hope Valley, (401) 539-8627, www.devinicals.com. Open most days from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., but call ahead in case he’s out.

arosenbe@projo.com