Published in 1949, Franconia Notch Reservation—White Mountains, New Hampshire, invites readers on a lively tour through one of New Hampshire’s most celebrated landscapes. Written in the conversational style of a letter to a friend, the letter-booklet recounts a visit to Franconia Notch’s iconic attractions, including the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway, the Old Man of the Mountain, Echo Lake, Profile Lake, and the Flume Gorge. Along the way, readers encounter colorful local stories—from Aunt Jess Guernsey’s discovery of the Flume to firsthand accounts of the devastating 1948 landslide on Mount Lafayette. Equal parts travel guide, promotional piece, and snapshot of postwar tourism in the White Mountains, it captures a time when Franconia Notch was emerging as one of New England’s premier destinations for sightseeing, recreation, and outdoor adventure.

Published in The Yale Literary Magazine in November 1861, Howard Kingsbury’s “A Summer Experience” offers a vivid, first-hand account of the Yale Glee Club’s time in New Hampshire’s White Mountains at the height of the region’s 19th-century tourism era. Kingsbury writes of their stay at the Profile House, then one of the most celebrated grand hotels in the mountains, and of excursions into the surrounding landscape, including a visit to John Merrill at the Pool at the Flume. Blending personal reflection with careful observation, the essay captures the rhythms of travel, hospitality, and natural wonder that defined the New England experience for generations of summer visitors—and provides a rare glimpse of places and people that shaped the history of our region.