The above photo was taken by Dick Smith circa 1950. The postcard reads: "Ride the 3200-ft Chair Tramway to the top of Mt. Rowe at the Million Dollar Belknap Mountain Recreation Area and view beautiful Lake Winnipesaukee and the majestic White Mountains."
Built in 1937, this single chairlift was one of the first chairlifts in the country (the fourth). The first chairlifts in the world had been built only a year earlier at Sun Valley, Idaho, copied from the banana lifts used in Central America to load United Fruit cargo vessels. The Rowe Mountain chairlift was the first chairlift in New England, preceding by three years the second New England chairlift, which was built at Stowe, Vermont in 1940. The original chairlift at Gunstock, the Rowe Mountain chairlift was 3300 feet long and rose over 700 feet.
In the 1940's and 1950's, it was a very popular summertime activity to take this unique new ride to the top of Mt. Rowe. By the 1960's, summertime rides were on the decline, as wintertime skiing had blossomed all over New England, and chairlifts had become commonplace. However, it is still possible to take a summertime chairlift ride at Gunstock on certain event days.
The webmaster remembers riding this chairlift to the top of Mt Rowe in the late 1960's. There were a couple of great, challenging ski trails from the top of the lift, the best being the "Fletcher Hale" trail. (Fletcher Hale, a Laconia resident, was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-ninth and to the three succeeding US Congresses and served from March 4, 1925, until his death on October 22, 1931. His grave lies in the Union Cemetery on Union Avenue in Laconia.)
Unfortunately, sometimes during the 1970's, Gunstock removed this chair and abandoned the trails. During the 1990's, the former Try-Me trail was graded into an access road, and an enormous cell phone tower was built on the summit. Now, the only remaining single chairlift in the USA is at the Mad River Ski Area in Waitsfield, Vermont, which erected its single chair in 1948. (New Hampshire can also boast of two more skiing lift "firsts". The first enclosed-cabin tramway in North America was built at Cannon Mountain in Franconia in 1938; and the first gondola in the USA opened in 1958 at Wildcat in Jackson.)
On the backside from the top of the single chairlift was an obscure, little-known connecting trail to what eventually became the now-defunct Mount Rowe ski area. Adjacent to Mount Rowe, on the access road from Gunstock, are four Olympic-style ski jumps of various sizes. The largest jump is now the site of the Hill Climb competition (scroll down to see photo below) on Wednesday during Motorcycle Week. These jumps are still in use today by the Gunstock Nordic Association.
Below - a photo from the 1957 Weirs Beach Chamber of Commerce brochure
Below, the chair in winter
The view on a beautiful fall day, taken from a single chair, on the way back down to the base of the mountain. The main lodge is visible at the center of the photo.
The same view taken 10-20 years earlier
Below - a color linen postcard, whose front caption read "Passengers arriving and leaving at Base Station of Chair Tramway, Belknap Recreation Area, Rt. 11A, 7 miles from Laconia, N.H."
The back of the postcard read "View of Chair Tramway to Summit of Rowe Mt. Length 3200 feet, Rise 714 feet, located in 800 acre Sports Center and Picnic Grounds."
Passengers arriving and leaving at the Summit Station of the Tramway
Below, another color linen postcard shows a crowd waiting to ride the Tramway. The original B&W photo appeared in the 1939 Lakes Region Association's "Where To" guidebook.
Below, the text from the reverse of the above postcard.
The text on the back side of the color linen postcard below said "The firetower inserted in the upper right is one of the many lookouts stationed at strategic points for quick fire control."
However, the firetower was located on the top of Mount Belknap, not on the top of Rowe Mountain.
Another view of the Lake from the summit of Mt. Rowe.
Below - a chrome 1950's postcard showing the Main Lodge. The lodge has changed very little over the years and it has pretty much the same appearance today.
Below-the webmaster has annotated a 1950's aerial postcard. On the back side of the postcard, the legend read as follows: "Recreational area near Laconia, NH. Showing chair lift on Rowe Mt. (,3200 ft) in center and ski trails with 4 ski jumps 10- 20- 40- 65 meter; with 5 meter ski jump at right. Lake Winnipesaukee is background."
Here is an ad from the 1956 edition of the Lakes Region Association's "Where To" tourist guidebook.
Below - a 1940 postcard by Harold Piper, a famous photographer of the time, especially noted for his aerial photography.
Below - a colorized postcard by Piper,"Traveling Skyward for a Downhill Slide - Chair Tramway, Belknap Mts. Recreation Area, Gilford, N.H.".
Below - "Skiers Starting up Rowe Mountain Tramway, Belknap Mountains Recreation Area, Gilford, N.H." Postmarked 1951.
Skiing was blooming in popularity and waiting in a lift line, the bane of skiers ever afterwards, was often required in order to reach the top.
Below - a postcard postmarked in 1941. It says Chair Tow, Belknap Rec. Area, Gilford, NH on the bottom left, and Quimby Drug, Lakeport, NH on the bottom right.
"Base Station, Chair Tramway"
"Chair Tow, Summer and Winter" - from the 1955 Weirs Beach Area Chamber of Commerce brochure.
"Chair Tramway, Belknap Recreation Area, Gilford, N.H."
Photo from a 1939 brochure,"Your Winter Vacation in the Lakes Region of NH"
Below, a photo from the 1947 Lakes Region Association's Where To guidebook. A sign cautions skiers, "Do Not Swing Chairs!"
Besides Gunstock, another local pioneer of the ski industry was the Northland Ski Manufacturing Company of Laconia. Founded by Christian Lund in the St. Paul, Minnesota area in 1911, the company grew quickly. In the 1920's Northland skis gained a widespread reputation for unsurpassed quality, making Northland the largest manufacturer of skis in the world. By the 1930's, Northland had also become the nation’s largest producer of toboggans, snowshoes and hockey sticks. The company was so successful it required additional manufacturing capacity, so it opened an eastern factory in Laconia. The 1930's catalog whose cover is shown below included for sale not only amateur and professional skis, but also poles, bindings, car carriers, goggles, waxes, snowshoes, hockey sticks, pucks, and toboggans, as well as a 4 page "How to Ski" section. Growing competition in the skiing industry in the 1940's and 1950's ended Northland's domination of the ski manufacturing market, and by the end of the 1960's, the Northland ski brand was history. Today, there are nearly 20 ski manufacturers.
Listed in the 1937-1938 Boston and Maine railroad brochure below were trips that one could take for the weekend on the Snow Train from Boston's North Station to Laconia's Belknap Mountain. There were also organized trips to Plymouth, Waterville Valley and Franconia Notch, as well as New Hampshire's Eastern Slope region (Mt. Whittier, Conway, North Conway, Intervale). Trips to Vermont included weekends at White River Jct.(Woodstock) and the Mt. Mansfield Region in Waterbury (Stowe). Prices ranged from $3.00 to $9.00 round trip.
Below, the 1936-1937 Snow Train brochure, the sixth year of the service. The Snow Train had begun on January 11, 1931, when the B&M had run the first snow train to Warner, NH. For an interesting Weirs Times PDF article about the Snow Train, click here.
The 1937 Eastern Ski Championships were held at Belknap. In 1939, when Belknap hosted them again, it marked the debut of ski jumping sensation Torger Tokle, who tied for first that year, and later went on to set the hill record of 251' on the 60 meter jump in 1941.
The Motorcycle Week Hill Climb competition circa 1938
A cook-out in the summertime
Summer Ski Jumping. This is nuts!
Penny Pitou and Egon Zimmerman, who ran the ski shool at Gunstock in the 1960's – the time and place where the webmaster learned how to ski. Pitou is certainly the most famous skier from Laconia; she won silver medals in downhill and giant slalom at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. Zimmerman, who also raced in the 1960 Olympics, was married to Pitou for a time. (Zimmerman should not be confused with a different skier with the same name who won the gold in the downhill at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and who owns the Hotel Kristberg in Lech, Austria.) Pitou's and Zimmerman's equipment - leather laced ski boots and long narrow wooden skis - seems so primitive by today's standards.
Pitou and Zimmerman both went on to successful careers in the business world. Pitou founded a travel agency in Laconia which now has a second location in North Conway. Zimmerman started a ski shop in Nashua which today has four New Hampshire locations and one in Massachusetts.
Fritzie Baer, who was the general manager for Belknap throughout the 1950's, shown here riding the Tucker Sno-cat up the Tiger Trail around 1951. Photo provided courtesy of Bob Arnold, Baer's grandson.
Still looking for more information or images about this topic?
Here is a great photo of the Rowe Mountain chairlift, from the New England Ski Museum.
Here is a nice collection of Belknap postcards (scroll down a little), put together by Laurie J. Puliafico, a ski history expert.
Here is a view of the Belknap mountain range of which Rowe Mountain is part, and here is an alternate view of the mountain range.
Here is a view of the Belknap range taken from the summit of Mt. Rowe.
These mountain range views are by DCR, master photographer of the mountains of the Lakes Region area.