Old Stone Stack, Felt pennant, 20th century, on loan from the Franconia Heritage Museum (Courtsey photo)
An exhibition opening May 31 at the Museum of the White Mountains examines the history of communities in the Franconia Notch region, touching on everything from construction of Interstate 93 to the importance of annual town meetings, Old Home Days, and the reinvention of area towns and their buildings.
The White Mountains: A Crossroads looks at the past, present and future of the towns of Bethlehem, Franconia, Lincoln, Woodstock, and Plymouth, according to Meghan Doherty, director of the Museum of the White Mountains. The museum is partnering with historical societies in those communities to include text, oral histories, photos, and artifacts.
This museum exhibition will dovetail with a traveling exhibition titled Crossroads: Change in Rural America, which is organized by “Museum on Main Street,” part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Traveling Exhibition Service and coordinated by NH Humanities and the Vermont Humanities Council.
Doherty says that she was drawn to the Smithsonian exhibition, which addresses the five themes of land, community, identity, persistence, and managing change. That exhibition will arrive already curated and addresses general issues in rural America. But it made her want to design something similar—with a local flavor.
“I wanted to create an exhibition of our own that looks at the same themes but in the context of the White Mountains,” she says. “The two exhibitions are congruent like that.”
John H. Burrford, Pemigewasset House, Plymouth, NH, Lithograph, c. 1865, On loan from the Robert S. Chase and Richard M. Candee Trust (Courtesy photo)
The White Mountains: A Crossroads exhibition will be laid out like a map of the region, says Doherty. The gallery’s south wall will focus on Plymouth, Lincoln, and Woodstock. The central area will examine construction of I-93 with an emphasis on Franconia Notch. The north gallery wall will be about Franconia and Bethlehem.
In addition to providing information specific to each town, there will also be four thematic sections explore the connections among them.
One section, “The Structures That Bind,” includes photos and narratives about how small communities in New England formally come together. One way is via town meetings—an uncommon form of town governance. Other materials will show how towns formally celebrate milestones such as their 250th anniversaries.
This section addresses Old Home Day, instituted in NH in the late 1800s as a reaction to textile mills and other factories luring workers away from rural communities. (Franconia still celebrates this annual event.) Doherty says that officials were concerned about factories such as those in Lowell and other textile mill towns hiring people away from agricultural communities. Worried that young people would lose their connection to their hometowns, the governor instituted annual Old Home Day as a structured event to bring people back and help them cement ties with where they grew up. A second section, “The Architecture of Community,” looks at how people create community in a built environment. Postcards and photos will depict how Bethlehem has had a town pool since the 1930s—first as Sunset Lake, then dug out and after the 1938 hurricane made into a pool, which in the last decade was renovated. Photos also chronicle Lincoln’s Kancamagus Recreation Area, which has operated a rope-tow ski area since the 1940s. The area hosts an annual ski race for people ages 3 to at least their 70s. For $1.50, the ski area even provides skiers with a hot dog, ridged potato chips and Koolaid. “It’s where the town comes together,” Doherty says.
While thinking about spaces where community is forged in the built environment, Doherty says, she and other organizers realized that each town’s historical society is housed in a different kind of building. Plymouth’s historical society is in the Old Court House, where Daniel Webster tried legal cases, whereas Lincoln’s Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society was originally a church and Franconia’s historical society is in a farmhouse.
Unknown photographer, J.E. Henry on his track cycle in Lincoln, Black and white photograph, c. 1930, On loan from the Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society (Courtesy photo)
A third section, “Subsistence and Beyond,” addresses the impact of agriculture on communities. Drawn to the Western White Mountains by the abundance of timber, families also had to cultivate harsh terrain to sustain themselves. As train service reached the mountains by the 1860s, these farming communities discovered a new source of income: tourism. Built by Joel Spooner in 1878, the farmhouse that now contains the Franconia Heritage Museum housed families as well as visitors. Farmers across the region began offering room and board to city dwellers seeking mountain air and scenic beauty.
This agricultural hospitality created the foundation for today's tourism industry. Many historic inns evolved from farmhouses, with families diversifying their income by accommodating travelers. Local products—maple syrup, fresh produce, and handcrafts—cultivated initially for subsistence became attractions themselves. This interweaving of agriculture and tourism continues today through farm-to-table restaurants, U-pick farms, and farmers' markets. As communities navigate changing economic landscapes, this dual heritage offers a model for sustainability, demonstrating how rural livelihoods can evolve while maintaining connection to the land that first supported these communities.
A fourth section, “Growth through Renewal,” is centered on the Bethlehem Historical Society building: It started as a café on the grounds of a large hotel, was pulled down the road by oxen in the 1890s and set where it is now, and then became a café, meat market, grocery store, antique store, realtors’ office, and vacant building, before becoming the museum. “So we use that building as emblematic of how each of these communities has had to re-invent themselves,” Doherty says.
This Renewal section includes projects by students in the U.S. History class at Lin-Wood High School that are centered on the history of development and redevelopment in Lincoln, Doherty says. One student studied the transition from logging to skiing at Loon Mountain. Another student made a 3-D printed topographical map of the Pemigewasset Valley, showing where logging roads were. Other student projects focus on revitalization of the Riverwalk area by the now-defunct paper mill, as well as the history of area train lines and the ways in which they were reinvented.
These student projects will tie into a final section called Collecting for Future Storytellers. “One of the things we realized through this project … is that no one really has much in their collections after 1970,” says Doherty. That’s when many historical societies were formed, and their focus was mostly on the grand-hotel era of the mid- to late 1800s. So, she said, this section will start with the questions: “What stories will we want to tell in 50 years about the last 50 years? And what objects will we need to be able to tell those stories?”
Sara Daley, who runs the Franconia Heritage Museum, says that the museum will contribute items related to construction of I-93 through the Notch, which was completed in 1988 as the Franconia Notch Parkway. Daley says in an email that the highway “was a debated topic and speaks to the constant struggle of combining access, livability, tourism, privacy, silence/peace, environmental preservation, and progress that our rural town and others in the area constantly wrestle with.”
The exhibition will also include myriad artifacts from bygone days, including a molded-glass ashtray from Cozy Cabins in Lincoln, china from grand hotels, and a pulp hook used in logging. Terry Fifield, president of the Plymouth Historical Society, said visitors will see artifacts from the Draper and Maynard Sporting Goods Factory, which among other things made Babe Ruth’s iconic catcher’s mitt.
Doherty says she thinks museum visitors will be drawn by both a Smithsonian-designed exhibition and the local story that the White Mountain exhibition will tell. “It will speak to locals as well as folks visiting the area,” she said, “because there are fabulous stories from these historical societies that showcase the special character of these rural towns.”
The White Mountains: A Crossroads and Crossroads: Change in Rural America will have an opening reception May 30 and will open to the public May 31. The White Mountains: A Crossroads runs through September 13. Crossroads: Change in Rural America runs through August 9. Both exhibits are free.