2023 Year in Review, White Mountains - Another year gone! Here in the White Mountains, the weather has been some of the strangest we have seen. As of today, there is just a dusting of snow in our front yard, and the White Mountains region is recovering from a major rainstorm. All the snow that was at the lower elevations melted during the rainstorm. At this point, we need a blizzard....[Continue reading] ...

Profile and Franconia Notch Railroad - On July 11, 1878, the state of New Hampshire approved an act to incorporate the Profile and Franconia Notch Railroad. The incorporators were Richard Taft, Charles H. Greenleaf (owners of the Flume House and Profile House), Nathaniel White, Joseph A. Dodge, Josiab T. Vose, John H. George, Walter Aiken, Emmons Raymond, John G. Sinclair, John G. Eaton, and Warren F. Daniell. In operation from 1879-1921, this roughly ten-mile long narrow gauge railroad serviced only ...

North Fork Spur Line, Thoreau Falls Trail - Located along the Thoreau Falls Trail, deep in New Hampshire’s 45,000-acre Pemigewasset Wilderness, is an interesting piece of East Branch & Lincoln Railroad history. In operation from 1893-1948 and originally owned by James E. Henry, this was a logging railroad in the towns of Lincoln and Franconia. Just before the North Fork Branch of the railroad crossed the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River at North Fork Function, a spur line branched ...

Noyes & Goddard, Swift River Railroad - Seen here in 2010 is an old stove at the site of the Holland camp along the abandoned Swift River logging Railroad in the New Hampshire White Mountains. This is a Noyes & Goddard stove (1886-1902 +/-) produced in Waterville, Maine. The stove model is "Maine". Incorporated on March 25, 1903, and operated by the Conway Company, the roughly twenty-five mile long Swift River Railroad was in operation from 1906-1916...[Continue reading] ...

O.G. Thomas Stove, Profile & Franconia Notch Railroad - Seen here in 2012 are remnants of an O.G. Thomas stove made in Taunton, Massachusetts, at an abandoned dwelling site along the Profile & Franconia Notch Railroad in the New Hampshire White Mountains. This O.G. Thomas stove stove piece is considered to be an artifact, and the removal of historical artifacts from federal lands without a permit is a violation of federal law..[Continue reading] ...

Cog Railway Hotel Proposal, Mount Washington - The owner of the Mount Washington Cog Railway is again proposing a restaurant and hotel accommodations on New Hampshire's Mount Washington. However, this project is a little different than the 35-room hotel proposal he made a few years ago. The Cog Railway owns a 99-foot-wide strip of land that straddles the railroad from the Cog Railway Station to the summit of Mount Washington. These accommodations would be built within this strip of land, ...

Woodstock & Thornton Gore Railroad - Incorporated in March 1909, this short-lived logging railroad, operated by the Woodstock Lumber Company, a subsidy of the Parker-Young Company, began at the Woodstock Lumber Company’s sawmill (built in 1906 by the Publishers Paper Company) on the western bank of the Pemigewasset River in Woodstock, New Hampshire. From the mill it traveled roughly 7 miles into the Eastman Brook drainage; traveling through the northern portion of Thornton, known as the “Gore”, eventually ending in ...

Identifying Historical Artifacts, White Mountains - If you are picking up trash in the New Hampshire White Mountains during the 2020 human impact issue, please educate yourself about historical artifacts and the laws that protect them. I now know of two instances where do-gooders picking up trash removed artifacts, thinking they were trash, from the White Mountain National Forest...[Continue reading] ...

East Branch & Lincoln Railroad, Utility Poles - Telephone wires were strung from utility poles along the East Branch & Lincoln Railroad to the numerous logging camps. In some areas along the railroad, side mounted wooden telephone peg holder pins nailed directly to trees were used in place of utility poles. Today, these utility poles are considered artifacts of the logging era....[Continue reading] ...

East Branch & Lincoln Railroad, Narrow Gauge Line - The EB&L Railroad was a standard gauge railroad, but in 1901 J.E. Henry and Sons attempted to use a narrow gauge railroad to harvest timber. With the exception of a May 1902 article by Albert W. Cooper and T.S. Woolsey, Jr. in Forestry & Irrigation little is known about this short-lived railroad. There are only a handful of photos (above) of this railroad, and over the years the actual location of ...