Vibe Spring2025 - Flipbook - Page 76
T
he Mount Washington Observatory has the
privilege of maintaining the Gladys Brooks
Memorial Library, which includes books, archival material, and museum artifacts, with a principal
subject focus of Mount Washington and the White
Mountains. The collection includes books, guidebooks, maps, engravings, stereoviews, postcards,
photos, motion pictures, and many other materials—some historical, some scientific. Included are
the institutional archives of the Observatory, including some materials dating to the Observatory’s 19th
century forebears, the 1870-1871 Hitchcock-Huntington Expedition and the soldier-observers of the
U.S. Army Signal Service. The library is located at the
Observatory’s Valley Office in North Conway village,
and is accessible to the public.
Looking for original Mount Washington weather
records from the late 1800s? You’ll find some here,
in the handwriting of early U.S. Army Signal Service soldiers. The original logbook in which summit
weather observer Salvatore Pagliuca recorded the
fateful events of April 12, 1934, the day on which a
world-record wind of 231 miles per hour blew over
Mount Washington is here, too. Personal books and
papers of Joe Dodge, who helped establish the Observatory in 1932, are also on the library’s shelves. A
special feature of the collection comprises of photos, negatives, and other materials from renowned
White Mountains photographer Guy Shorey, who
flourished in the first half of the 20th century.
The Observatory recently initiated a pilot digitization project, funded, in part, through the generosity
of the Henney Historical Fund. This project focuses on
some of the most iconic items in the Observatory’s
collection, with a goal to make many images available
to the public via the internet. Providing such expanded access will assist historical researchers and will
accommodate those with an interest in the area for
personal enrichment. Having the materials digitized
will also spare the original, sometimes fragile, items
from unnecessary wear and tear.
Presented within are a few of the images that
have been digitized. These images illustrate the long
and colorful history of Mount Washington, and help
chronicle the fascinating stories of human endeavor
on the mountain, the loftiest peak in the Northeastern United States. We consider not just the Observatory and its predecessors, but other activities that
have a rich heritage on the mountain, such as the
Mt. Washington Auto Road, The Mount Washington Cog Railway, and various summit buildings that
have come and gone over the years. Many of the earliest photographic images of the summit are from
stereoviews, which were very popular in the last half
of the 19th century. Placed in a simple viewer, the
stereoviews allowed the two similar photos to be
combined into a 3D image.
In 1861, the Carriage Road from The Glen was completed, allowing horse-drawn carriages to reach the
summit. It later became the Mt. Washington Auto Road.
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