Grand Hotels Of The White Mountains Explores Golden Age

CONCORD, N.H. -- The Museum of New Hampshire History is paying tribute to the phenomenal rise and popularity of the state's grand resort hotels in its current display "Popular Resorts: Grand Hotels of the White Mountains". The fascinating story has been recreated through sets and a rich combination of paintings, hotel furnishings, photographs, memorabilia and promotional materials. The exhibition will be on view through January 4, 1998.

Bryant F. Tolles, Jr., director of the museum studies program at the University of Delaware, is guest curator and author of The Grand Resort Hotels of the White Mountains: A Vanishing Architectural Legacy.

In the late Nineteenth Century, there was a greater concentration of grand resort hotels in New Hampshire's White Mountains than anywhere else in America. Between 1885 and 1910, at the height of the era, more than 12,000 people could be accommodated in the region's 200 hotels, inns and boarding houses. The railroads spurred hotel development in the 1850s. Prior to that, travelers would often undertake the long and uncomfortable stagecoach ride north. The White Mountain hotels originated with early highway taverns and inns of the 1820s and 1830s. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a frequent traveler to the region, characterized these as "at once the pleasure-houses of fashionable tourists and the homely inns of country travelers."

With the increased accessibility that the railroads provided, plus expanded wealth made available by the industrial revolution, a newly emerging middle class contributed to a dramatic rise in tourism in the region. From 1851 on, a trade that had been measured in hundreds of people would now be measured in tens of thousands.

Each of the major hotels, such as the Crawford House, Fabyan House, Profile House, The Maplewood, The Waumbek and The Glen House had its own train station or livery service and its own versions of comfort and elegance: gas lighting, fancy dining, lawn tennis, and mountain guides. Each of these establishments had a guest capacity of 400 or more, each was built entirely of wood and each was eventually destroyed by fire

The last of the truly grand hotels was the Mount Washington of Bretton Woods. One of the largest, and one of the few still operating today, it opened in 1902 in an era when urban businessman commonly sent their families to the White Mountains for the summer months and visited them on weekends. Presidents and foreign dignitaries came too. Mrs. Pullman came each summer in her own private railroad car.

The hotel industry flourished in the White Mountains because of the district's proximity to major East Coast cities. Europeans were also drawn to what English novelist Anthony Trollope described as "a district in New England containing mountain scenery superior to much that is yearly crowded by tourists in Europe, that is to be reached with ease by railways and stagecoaches, and that is dotted with huge hotels, almost as thickly as they lie in Switzerland."

Just as tourists a century ago traveled by train to vacation amid New Hampshire's majestic White Mountains, museum visitors will begin their journey through "Popular Resorts: Grand Hotels of the White Mountains" in a simulated railroad car. The use of sound and video in period settings will transport visitors back in time to experience life at a Nineteenth Century resort hotel. Visitors may relax and browse through tourist publications, play games of the period and enjoy paintings of the White Mountains by John Badger Bachelder, Frank Shapleigh and Edward Hill. A guest bedroom, kitchen, and service areas can be glimpsed through doorways and windows. Rocking chairs will beckon visitors to stop and linger awhile on the hotel's veranda.

The Museum of New Hampshire History is reached from Interstate 93 at Exit 14 in Concord. Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday 9:30 am to 5 pm, Thursday evening 5 to 8:30 pm and Sunday noon to 5 pm. The Museum is closed Mondays. Telephone 603/226-3189.