Franconia and Franconia Notch

In New England terms Franconia is a relatively 'new' town.  It was founded because it was a flat spot.  In 1772 a couple of families decided they could actually farm here since everything else they found in these Northern White Mountains was on a steep angle.  The other necessary ingredient of water was supplied by the Gale River, a 13 mile tributary of the Ammonusac River which is part of the Connecticut River watershed.  The Gale River is a county road, the Ammonusac River is a state road, and the Connecticut River is an interstate highway.  All pre-civil war commerce used the rivers to get goods to market.  Of course, the coming of the railroads changed all of that.  The railroads also snuffed out the reason Franconia became something other than a flat place you could plant crops.

Franconia was a poster child of early industrialization in the United States.  In 1805 an iron ore smelting furnace was developed here.  There was lots of iron ore, the Gale River for power, and the river highway system to get the iron to markets.  Today you can see what's left:  a large 30 foot stone tower composed of fitted together granite blocks with an interior brick furnace and chimney.  Iron ore was carted (by hand in big iron carts) to the furnace and the iron was separated from the slag (refers to anything with the ore that wasn't iron) by heating it in the furnace with a charcoal fire.  Then, the purified iron was periodically drained out of the furnace into bars.  The newly made iron bars were shipped out via the rivers to iron customers, or manufactured into Franconia Stoves in Franconia.  This business venture was so successful that the entire town of Franconia relocated a couple of miles to its present location.  The remains (the stone tower around the furnace) is almost in the center of present day Franconia.  This was a thriving business venture until 1865.  What killed it?  The railroads.  The infant steel/iron industry in Pennsylvania had a larger population, bigger furnaces and the railroad to ship its product.  Franconia iron production died at the end of the Civil War.

I'm sure survival of this town was touch and go between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the 20th century.  Not only would there have been quite a few Franconian young men killed or maimed in the Civil War, but farming was the only way to make a living until the nascent timber industry rediscovered the Gale River as a way to get the lumber closer to markets in the last part of the 19th century.  But what really kept this town alive was the discovery of the excellent skiing in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Since the 1880's Franconians have been eking out a living on the tourists.  This place looks idyllic, but according to the doctor I saw last week, there's a lot of poverty in this area.  It's easy to understand.  When you step back and look at this gorgeous place, there's nothing here besides a few run down farms, and everything else is services for the tourists.  Beauty doesn't buy food, or shoes, or heat in the winter. 

That brings us to Franconia Notch State Park.  First the 'notch' is an 8 mile low spot that connects two mountain ranges in the White Mountains.  The state park WAS home to The Old Man in the Mountain - a granite formation on the side of one of the mountains here which looked like an old man and whose profile became a symbol of New Hampshire.  The 'profile' is still on all state highway road signs.  Unfortunately, even though shoring up attempts were made, this formation collapsed in 2003.  Now, we have homage to something that doesn't exist anymore.  One of the existing attractions at the Park is the Cannon Mountain Ski Resort, a state owned ski resort founded in the 1930's that contains one of the most challenging ski hills in New England.  It was also the place Bode Miller first learned to ski.  Today we took the aerial tram (the first in North America) up to the top of Cannon Mountain and took in the view which was spectacular and was 15 degrees cooler than at the base.  You can see into Vermont from the top of the mountain.             There's also a hiking path around the top of the mountain which was fun.  Here we are looking at the view.

When we came down the mountain - don't you just love aerial trams - this is also the home of the New England Ski Museum.  Don't get excited, this is a tiny little building which has one interesting thing in it:  Bode Miller's Olympic medals.  Since we had never actually seen an Olympic medal, it was startling to see them here.  He has given all his medals to this museum for display.  We got to see three silver medals, one gold and one bronze.  I was surprised to see that one of his medals was actually pretty scratched up.  Maybe it made the rounds of a post event party.  That's what it looks like.  The rest of the museum was quaint, that's the only word for it, but of course, I liked it.  I'm sure Drake was just glad it was SMALL and an ice cream break accompanied the visit.  

Finally, the pictures that accompany this entry have some pictures of the July 4th celebration in Franconia, as well as pictures of sunsets taken from our house up here, and a couple of pictures of our cluttered living room.  Enjoy them all.

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