As New England farmers left the area for Midwest farmlands, the White Mountains grew increasingly popular. Fabyans, the Lafayette House, the Flume House, and many other increasingly comfortable hotels sprang up throughout the region.

Tourists clutching their guidebooks traveled by railroads to the Whites beginning in the early 1850s and more followed. Popular among urbanized New Englanders and New Yorkers, the tourist industry promoted the Whites as a place for quiet rejuvenation and contemplation.

• The Weeks Act of 1911
• Tourists & Travelers
• Word Gets Out
• The Farmers Left; The Hotels Came
• Private Hands
• Arrival of the Loggers
• Need for Management
• Departure of the Forests
• Logging Photos
• The Tourists Continue to Arrive
• Educated Tramps and ‘Culchowed’ Pedestrians
• Tourist Photos
• The Path of Destruction
• AMC and Hiking Photos
• Suffering the Consequences
• Scarred Landscapes
• Proposals for Public Purchase
• Advocating for the Forests
• A Spokesman for the Trees
• Spreading the Message
• Progress Toward the Weeks Act
• Yet the Destruction Continued
• The Final Push
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature”
• Return to Exhibition Info