The owners of the legendary Mt. Washington Auto Road have contracted Acomb Ostendorf & associates, a real estate developer, to pursue a new lodge at one of America’s most historic tourist sites. For 150 years the Mt. Washington Auto Road has been a family run business, and it’s history is that of a New England icon.
The history of the Auto Road began in the wheat fields of Canada. There were huge crops to be shipped out in winter, but there was no ice-free seaport available. So, a railroad line was built from Montreal to Portland in 1851. It passed through Gorham and opened up the east side of the White Mountains to the tourist trade.
In 1850, the railroad had paid for rebuilding the road from Gorham into Pinkham Notch. Further, the railroad financed the construction of the Glen Bridle Path
to the summit of Mount Washington and started its own Alpine House Hotel in Gorham - one of the many fine hostelries of the Grand Age of Hotels.
It was a busy time. The first Glen House, at the foot of the Road, was completed in 1852; the same year that the first Summit House was built on Mount Washington. (There have been two other Summit Houses since.) The Tip Top House, still standing, was erected in 1853, and in that year, the New Hampshire State Legislature granted Gen. David O Macomber of Middletown, Conn., the charter for the Mount Washington Road Company. The grand plan envisioned horse-drawn omnibuses on the Road, a massive hotel and observatory. Not all that came about, but work on the road began in the summer of 1854.
Building the Road was an enormous task. The nearest source of supplies was eight miles away, and all transportation was by horse, oxen or on the backs of men. Dynamite was unknown. Black powder was the explosive, and blasting holes were all drilled by hand. There was no machinery to handle the countless tons of rock and gravel that had to be moved. Even in Mount Washington's bad weather, laborers worked 10-12 hours a day and lived in primitive shanties or tents.
Work progressed until the fall of 1856, when the halfway point was reached. Then money ran out, and the effort was halted. But, a new company, the present Mount Washington Summit Road Company, was formed in 1859. The next year, work resumed, and the first tolls were collected for passage to the Halfway House.
The gala opening of the Road to the summit took place on August 8, 1861, with many local dignitaries arriving at the summit in a Concord Coach. But, the honor of driving the first horse-drawn vehicle to the summit went to Col. Joseph Thompson, then proprietor of the Glen House. To be sure of beating out his friendly rival, Col. John Hitchcock, landlord of the Alpine House, Thompson drove his horse and carriage to the summit three weeks before the official
opening. The last few yards were still so strewn with boulders that help was needed to keep the carriage upright, but he made it. And, he saw to it that a photographer was there.
After the Road was opened to the public, its business doubled every year until 1869. That year, the Cog Railway was completed, on the west side of the Mountain; and many found the relatively short trip and enclosed cars preferable to an all day journey on the Road in open mountain wagons. Road management responded by building the Stage Office at the summit to lure Cog passengers down to the Glen House from which they traveled to the railroad station by six-horse tally-ho, and took the train back to where they started in Crawford Notch.
The Florida Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (FLASLA) held their annual Design Awards Program on Friday, July 24, 2009. "The Design Awards Program honors projects that blend environmental and artistic principles, emphasize beauty, function, and the environment." Receiving an Award of Honor for the Bella Collina Clubhouse in Montverde, Florida was Tom Acomb and team. Tom Acomb was the Senior Development Manager for the project.
