Traveling Tuesday: The Role of the Mt. Washington Hotel During WWII

Traveling Tuesday: 

The Role of the Mt. Washington Hotel During WWII

Last week, I shared about the four grand hotels that are still operating in New Hampshire. One of those, the Mt. Washington played a critical role at the end of World War II. Located deep in the White Mountains above Crawford Notch in Bretton Woods, the hotel was completed in 1902 and offered luxurious accommodations to anyone who could afford to stay. Sadly, the owner, Joseph Stickney, died of a heart attack the following year.

Over the next decade his wife continued to improve the property, but Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the implementation of income tax put a damper on business. Mrs. Stickney’s nephew inherited the hotel in 1936, but six years later, shuttered the doors because of the war. He sold to a Boston syndicate in 1944 for $450,000 (a huge amount of money back then).

On July 1 of that year, the Bretton Woods Conference commenced with 730 delegates from all forty-

four Allied nations. Years of work preceded the conference, with a preliminary conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey held in mid-June 1944. No where in my research could I unearth who decided that a remote, luxury hotel in the mountains of New Hampshire was the perfect location for the conference, and I can’t imagine the logistics of getting everyone to the facility. Located more than 150 miles from the Boston airport, the hotel is accessed by one hilly, winding road (and it’s not an interstate) that passes through Crawford Notch, elevation 1,923 feet. There is nothing for miles around – no restaurants, no other hotels…nothing.

The conference adjourned three weeks after it started with the delegates signing the Final Act of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference that established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD – later part of the World Bank Group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and implementing the “Bretton Woods system,” a system of economic order and international cooperation that would help countries recover from the war’s devastation and foster long-term global growth.

Some of the features of the system were an “adjustably pegged foreign exchange market tied to gold, that could only be altered to correct a fundamental disequilibrium,” pledges by member countries to make their currency convertible for trade-related and other current account transactions, and a requirement of member countries to subscribe to IMF’s capital.

The system ended in 1971.

__________________

Ivy's Inheritance

Has she fled one untrustworthy man only to be stuck with another?

Ivy Cregg’s father is a gambler, but this time he’s gone too far. He loses his mining fortune and her along with it in a high-stakes poker game. Unwilling to go along with the deal, she hides out with a friend who tells her about Ms. Crenshaw, owner of the Westward Home & Hearts Mail-Order Bride Agency who is in town. The prospective groom is a wealthy man which seems like an answer to prayer until Ivy discovers he made his fortune in mining. Is he as untrustworthy as her father?

After emigrating to America to fight for the Union during their Civil War, Slade Pendleton moved West while working on the railroad, then headed to the plains of Nebraska to seek his fortune. He was one of the lucky ones and now has everything he could ever want. Except a wife. With the few women in the town already married, he sends for a mail-order bride. The woman arrives carrying the telegram that explains her need to flee, but now that she’s safe, she seems to have no interest in going through with the ceremony. Should he send her packing or try to convince her to stay?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Ca3xI6

Photo Credits:

Mt. Washington Hotel: By rickpilot_2000 from Hooksett, USA - Mt. Washington HotelUploaded by jbarta, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26447136 

Delegation: U.N. Monetary Conference (Photo: Associated Press; Photographer: Abe Fox)

New Zealand Report of the conference: By Archives New Zealand from New Zealand - International Monetary Fund formed 1945, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51249801

Traveling Tuesday: Grand Hotels of New Hampshire

Traveling Tuesday: 

Grand Hotels in New Hampshire

The Gilded Age brought prosperity to America, and during the era, hundreds of “grand hotels’ sprang up across the country offering luxury and service to the rich and famous. You may be familiar New York’s Waldorf Astoria, Washington, DC’s Willard InterContinental, and The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan. Tragically, some of the grand hotels were vacated and eventually fell into disrepair to be knocked down and forgotten.

Of the original twenty-four grand hotels in New Hampshire four are still in operation: Mt. Washington Hotel, The Wentworth Inn, Eagle Mountain House, and The Mountain View Grand. The Balsams, built in 1866, is currently closed with plans to reopen in the future. All the hotels are in the northern part of the state in the White Mountains.

The Mt. Washington Hotel was built in Bretton Woods between 1900 and 1902 by NH native Joseph Stickney whose wealth came from being a coal broker. With an eye toward creating a luxurious getaway for “city folks,” he spared no expense, spending $1.7 million (approximately $64 million in today’s dollars). According to Wikipedia, at its completed the hotel had more than 2,000 doors, 12,000 windows, and eleven miles of plumbing. Unfortunately for Stickney, he died of a heart attack the year after the hotel opened. His wife spent summers at the hotel and continued to expand the structure.

Constructed in 1869 in the town of Jackson by Joshua Trickey and originally names the Thorn

Mountain House, the Wentworth Inn was a wedding gift for his daughter, Georgia, and her husband, General Marshall Clark Wentworth. By the turn of the century the facility included a casino, multiple billiard parlors, and a ballroom. Eventually, the inn grew to its current size of sixty-one rooms. Not much is known about Trickey other than he had a successful farm, and built the Jackson Falls House (hotel) in 1858, then two years later, sold some of his property to the school district so they could build the schoolhouse.

Opening in 1879, Eagle Mountain House had rather humble beginnings. The original inn was a farmhouse style building that could accommodate twelve guests, and the owners worked the surrounding property as a farm, providing food for the guests from their fields. A golf course went in sometime prior to 1910 because the sport was all the rage by this time. Two more buildings were added allowing for up to 125 guests, but tragically a fire in 1915 destroyed the Main Inn. The new building with seventy-five rooms, most featuring private baths, was completed the following year. An elevator was also installed.

The Mountain View Grand was originally known as the Mountain View House and opened in 1866 by William and Mary Jane Dodge. Intriguingly, the hotel was not a hotel when the first guests arrived. The story goes that after a stagecoach overturned on a stormy night in 1865, the passengers made their way to the Dodge’s house and asked if they could stay the night. They were served a full breakfast the following morning and requested to stay longer. The Dodges agreed. Before leaving the guests asked if they could come back the following summer, and the Dodges realized they had something special. By the following year they had expanded the property and opened officially. Over the years, additions were made with a final total of 141 rooms. The guest book reads like a who’s who with seven presidents, writers such as Robert Frost, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Steven King, and film stars that included Betty Grable, Bette Davis, and the Marx Brothers.

Have you ever stayed in a “grand” hotel?

___________________

Ivy's Inheritance

Has she fled one untrustworthy man only to be stuck with another?

Ivy Cregg’s father is a gambler, but this time he’s gone too far. He loses his mining fortune and her along with it in a high-stakes poker game. Unwilling to go along with the deal, she hides out with a friend who tells her about Ms. Crenshaw, owner of the Westward Home & Hearts Mail-Order Bride Agency who is in town. The prospective groom is a wealthy man which seems like an answer to prayer until Ivy discovers he made his fortune in mining. Is he as untrustworthy as her father?

After emigrating to America to fight for the Union during their Civil War, Slade Pendleton moved West while working on the railroad, then headed to the plains of Nebraska to seek his fortune. He was one of the lucky ones and now has everything he could ever want. Except a wife. With the few women in the town already married, he sends for a mail-order bride. The woman arrives carrying the telegram that explains her need to flee, but now that she’s safe, she seems to have no interest in going through with the ceremony. Should he send her packing or try to convince her to stay?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Ca3xI6

Photo Credits: 

Mountain Washington Hotel: By rickpilot_2000 from Hooksett, USA - Mt. Washington HotelUploaded by jbarta, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26447136 

Wentworth Inn: Courtesy of the Wentworth Inn

The Mountain View Grand: Courtesy of visitwhitemountains.com