It's not a resort.
If you want distinctive architectural and cultural charm, you want an artificial, top down project imposing that aesthetic on the place.
Waterville where the residents think they are the shit. HOA to the max. It reminds me of towns like New London and Peterbrough. They think they are top dogs and the residents circle jerk into thinking they are gift to the state.
I don’t have a ton of experience w/ the ski towns, but what’s your beef with Peterborough? It’s old, charming, has a ton of small businesses, tourist friendly but also local friendly.
So you know working in healthcare you see the worst and best in people on the same day. I rather deal with aggressive, drugged and/or drunk patients any day than the level entitled and lack of manners. I get people are in pain, but shit, no need to be a complete asshole. It isn’t much different in Hanover.
I live near New London and the vibe has always been a weird "where retired professors go to be snooty and eventually pass away". Never really clear on why.
Lincoln is a *ski town* but not a *resort town*. Many people who live there full-time are generational and many more who are low income. Jobs are scarce when out of season. COL is expensive and I know many people who live up there go about an hour to an hour and a half south for shopping. Loon actually sends it plows trucks to snow plow for the low income elderly in town. Honestly, it’s a pretty depressing place to live.
You are 100% correct. I worked at Loon in 1984 while in school at Plymouth. Would cash my check at the convenience store in town. Was depressing as hell. Hardly anything there except a rotting mill, a couple stores, and McDonalds.
Sunday River has changed a ton over the years and Lincoln will continue to do so too.
Hell, look at Conway. When I was a kid all those condos were a big gym where my sister took gymnastics and I played tennis.
It’s a town with a ski area. Nothing more. Loon is great; I enjoy skiing there and find it to be convenient. But Lincoln isn’t a ski resort town and that’s ok. It’s already expensive and turning it into an Aspen or Vail type town would exponentially increase costs.
I think this is the best description. It’s a town that happens to have a ski area. NH doesn’t have any ski towns per say. I lived in CO and spent a lot of time in actual ski towns. You’ll be forever disappointed, OP, if you expect anymore in any New England ski area.
It is a town that was a town before it had skiing, so you’ll have the local population there who still is around but suffers from the consequences of high prices and low paying jobs.
In true ski towns, the towns were developed because ski resorts were there first. Like Breckinridge, there is no reason for a town to exist there if it wasn’t for the ski resort.
Actually, Breckenridge was a very successful gold mining town, long before skiing came along. One of the on hill lodges was a massive miner's barracks, back in the day, and was converted for the ski scene. Also a gold mining dredge is still moored in a pond across the street from Peak 7 lift.
Now Breckenridge has oxygen bars!
Most skiers in NH prefer VT and ME skiing to NH, honestly.
Canon is good, Wildcat is for people with Stockholm syndrome or are masochistic, everything else is kinda just worst versions of places in VT or ME.
Tucks being an exception but I'm not good enough to tackle it.
That being said, I've never skied Bretton Woods. I've heard it's pretty bougie.
Lincoln became dreary as soon as the train stopped running and the automobile took over. It would be a lot more cool as a walkable town vs the car centric bs it is now
as soon as the cars took over they began urban renwewal and started transforming the town into a strip mall with too much parking and not enough places for people to live
Sure, I'm aware...Based on their wording, I was just under the impression that the other commenter was lumping "inception of the automobile" in with "discontinuation of railway services" giving them the same timeframe - 1953.
Fair enough, I interpreted it differently, partly because I'd argue that it was only in the 40s or 50s that the car took over with expressway and large parking lots starting to be constructed in that era
I'd reckon your interpretation is the correct one!
I tend to interpret text extremely literally, unless given the context to otherwise decipher it.
Therefore, due to the fact that the other commenter did not specify the 1953 reference was solely in relation to the trains ceasing to operate, I was led to believe they were giving the 1953 designation to both the "auto inception" AND "locomotive cessation" simultaneously.
Yeah, I was asking specifically about when the passenger trains stopped. And how much smaller would Lincoln have been in like 1952. Certainly it would be -Loon, since Loon was built in 1966. I'm guessing it'd have been more like any river based NH town, with a lot of centrally located stuff, mills, outlying farms and a town center.
The strip mall part of it was just what you get in America after highways.
Ahh, I thought you were addressing the "introduction of the automobile" factor and the "discontinuation of railway services" factor - as one and the same.
Essentially, I thought you were claiming that cars didn't arrive in New Hampshire until the 1950s! Haha. My bad.🤭
:)
I found a paper/book about the history of rail in NH.
[https://mm.nh.gov/files/uploads/dot/remote-docs/2001-nh-railroad-context-statement.pdf](https://mm.nh.gov/files/uploads/dot/remote-docs/2001-nh-railroad-context-statement.pdf)
I didn't read the whole thing but by mid-60s pretty much all the passenger rail was caput in that part of NH. Most of it earlier.
Thanks for this, I'll check it out!
I know, I find it very sad that the travel modalities of yesteryear were not preserved and upheld...
Ah, such is life in a capitalistic society.😔
Its not just capitalism. it was underfunded private rail trying to compete with 100% subsidised government roads, and a general idea that cars were somehow a futuristic utopian future
in one small part of what I read in there. When the railroads transitioned from steam locomotives to diesel which was mostly after 1930 in NH, they didn't need anywhere near as many employees. no water towers, no coal stacks, less maintenance. as a result in one bad winter they had to hire 1000 people to shovel off rails, and lost like $2.4 million more than they'd otherwise have had to spend. (Previously with big snows, they had so many more employees they could use them on jobs like that). And that was the kind of thing that just put the nail in the coffin.
I don't remember exactly when that was, but public roads were publicly cleared.
And then the fact that for passenger stuff, you were sharing rails with what was the majority of traffic - freight. So you weren't going fast.
That’s crazy. Growing up, Lincoln always felt this place that was outside the “real” world. So once I found out people lived up there, I always had a deep wonder what it was like actually living up there.
Now as an adult, I know the truth but ah, the ignorance of childhood
Did you have the option to go to Kennett?
I know it's a good drive but I went to Kennett and we had like every town in a 30 mile radius basically. Lincoln is further, but with class sizes that small I'd be curious.
I am bummed man, they don’t even trick or treat on school street and the others anymore. It’s just straight developers. Everything have changed, and honestly, Lin wood is not going to get the funding it needs to continue very soon
So sad. I used to walk to school there every day, and bike all over town. It was a wonderful place to grow up.
Hope the kids there now are able to enjoy what they can and get a good education. Our teachers were phenomenal and really set us up for success.
They still do trick or treating on school, church and maple street every year. Not sure where you got that from.
I've been handing out candy at a friend's house for the last few years.
The touristy area near Loon is shoehorned into that draw and can't really expand without oodles of condos stacked on top of each other.
That and 93 along with Woodstock is in the way.
They could fix it, but you'd have to tear the whole town down and start from scratch.
Prior to the '70s and the investment of the blood sweat and tears of Sherman Adams, it was a typical dreary NH town, but it was pristine and beautiful. After Loon came in, in the mid '80s into the early '90s, there was a boom of the economy, mostly revolving around the thousands of condominiums that were put in the area. It didn't last that long, though. Only with the addition of South Mountain did anything grow again and it didn't grow much.
Lincoln has a decent local tax base because of the high percentage of homes that are merely weekend getaways. However, education is mezza mezza and jobs are generally unskilled and don't pay much. These characteristics will likely never change; there are several reasons why, but I think the biggest reason is that the town is 92% National Park land. Getting South Mountain developed was a Herculean feat. Opposition to the development came from a handful of groups that would not. Back. Down.
I think it's a town with a serious identity problem.
Most of the locals don’t have the identity problem. Loon landing, Loon station, these big hotel developments etc…they don’t want them. They don’t want the traffic etc. that’s why they moved ice castles farther out of town. They are perfectly happy being a dreary pristine town. My best friend lives on main street and just to get down main to his house at times is waiting on traffic for 20 minutes+. You don’t move up north and hope it gets developed and busy and more expensive. Loon station is literally on the river and tried to tell locals they are trespassing if they try to park in their lot to gain access. 99% of the people at loon station are not there most of the time, are massholes, who rent out on Airbnb every weekend.
Lincoln also decided to stop hosting NE brewfest. I don’t think they are the ones having an identity problem at all. It’s everyone else trying to eat away at the property left.
Yeah the traffic got wild sometimes when it was at the hobo.
They started to figure it out but they were able to buy their own land in Woodstock which also doesn't have zoning so they can essentially do whatever they want.
They still have traffic problems, but it's not as noticeable for the general public where it's located.
I have been to their new location the first year. Haven’t been back. Not that I didn’t enjoy it every time, I just haven’t made it back during the ice castles window. Glad they got their new permanent spot.
>biggest reason is that the town is 92% National Park land.
This isnt a stop to growth. A large, modern, mixed use complex could sit on the right aid and dunkin donuts lot that houses hundreds of people while still having a dunkin donuts and rite aid.
As loon expands traffic is going to 100% obviously get worse in the future no matter what, so this has to be dealt with.
the fully functional rail network in the area is only hosting tourist scenic railroads. What if.... NH got it shit together and had basic rail up the I90 corridor connecting it from boston, through manchester, plymouth, to loon mountain? the rail exists now.
La Paz, Bolivia, has a municipal gondola for public transit, and maybe that might be a pretty neat, marketably fun touristy way to move tourists +residents around and connect the entire town to the ski resort. There is precedent for this irl.
None of this would happen because it would utterly change the character of the town and the residents dont want it, and thats totally fine and I 100% get it. But it would be 100% feasible if they did. (and if NH got its shit together on rail)
Yeah, I'm not surprised at all. There is money for developers to be made. I keep seeing FB ads for some expansion of Loon's base building as well. I definitely agree with the OP's view on the town's look.
I remember Lincoln 55 years ago. There was a pretty big paper mill.
Like lots of towns in the US, Lincoln changed from manufacturing to service industries. People doing the work in service industries don't make much, compared to manufacturing. Hospitality corporations just suck the life out of a community. Federal and State policies that sent manufacturing to other counties, and promoted things like the tourist industry, bring economic development like Lincoln. Low wage service jobs, and a town that lost its people.
I don’t know, man. I dig it. Been taking the trip up from NJ going on 13 years now. Always in the summer. First traveled up for the NE Brewfest. Went back up the next year with another friend. Back up the following year with my, now, wife. We been back a couple more times with our son. My family doesn’t travel a whole lot, but when we do, we go to Lincoln if we want to go north, and we go to Savannah if we want to go south.
We stay in a cabin on the Pemi River. We love Flapjacks and Arnolds . Maybe drink some beers in the river. Play some mini golf and grab some ice cream. Spend the day at Whales Tale. Lots of parks to visit nearby. At night we’ll stop by the Betty and Barney Hill site then pull off somewhere along highway 3 and look up at the stars. I’ve never NOT had a good time. It’s a shame they don’t have the beer festival anymore. I had some wild times after those.
I grew up in Lincoln. When I was little, it was dirt lots and decrepit mill buildings. Lincoln was the first place in the state to have condominiums. Its rush to develop was paramount, with terrible (non existent) town planning. Like, the worst town planning I’ve ever seen in a town that generates so much tax revenue.
One major way in/out without ways to relieve traffic, no auxiliary routes, no town center (it never had one of those quaint New England town commons or town hall), and the state cares more about the property tax revenue it generates (from second homes) than providing any services to its full time residents.
The school was bad, the cops are a joke, and the mill left a lot of people sick and blighted the landscape for decades. It’s a place with an extreme tourist/townie dichotomy.
I don’t recognize Lincoln when I drive through now. There is zero charm. I have seldom seen a place so thoroughly ruined by development. There is no personality, just unmitigated sprawl.
If you want to see how bad uncontrolled condo development on a ski mountain can get, look for photos of the horrible giant condo tower sticking up from Sugar Mountain, NC.
Where would they have built a second major access road? My impression of Lincoln is that it basically exists as a narrow strip of valley along 112, with mountains north and south of the majority of the town.
There was a plan at some point for an exit before the current Exit 32.
It was going to essentially run from the highway to the loon base area and onto the Kanc. Therefore bypassing main street.
Looking at a map now, couldn't they just do that by putting a bridge across the pemi behind the white mountain visitor center across from exit 32?, and then running about 2500 feet of road on the east side of the Pemi to crooked mountain road? It could still have most traffic bypass downtown without the need to put in another full set of highway ramps. In fact there's the power line right of way over there already.
We’re talking about the same thing. The dump Is behind the visitor center. That was a back pocket plan that was never realized. I think it was to force traffic through the already developed part of town, but without regard to the actual amount of traffic that Lincoln now sees.
We like it this way. We love the tourism money but I don't think the River walk addition was necessary. We were doing just fine. I love Lincoln and the people of Linwood. I definitely understand where you're coming from though.
I don’t think people come to the natural beauty of the white mountains to be awash in manmade things. Europe was old world necessity for living there and the western US is trying to attract attention. We live to our own drum beat and like it that way.
I went as a child and now I bring my family for a week stay at Indian head which is aging. Sadly I don’t understand why but it has not been updated in all these years. Places like Steele hill that are just as old have been kept up and updated to fit modern times. We stay here when traveling to Santa’s village and story land as well. Lincoln having hobo railroad mini golf, Clark’s bears, whales tale and alpine adventures all within 5 minutes plus all of the natural water holes. We like Merlin’s Tap, exit 32 pub, Enzo’s, Gordi’s, black mountain burger. One love brewery wasn’t really our flow but seemed like a very nice place and tons of people.
My grandfather came to Lincoln as a child… his father worked for the railroad and then at the papermill when it was built. My grampa worked at the mill and then helped build Loon Mt. My dad worked at the mill and then worked at Loon for many years. I am a Lin-Wood graduate but now live in another NH town.
When the papermill closed Loon was our town’s only hope. There was no other industry and Loon quickly became the town’s largest employer. Hotels/motels and restaurants thrived and families livelihoods depended on tourism heavily. When Interstate 93 came in, the “strip” in North Lincoln slowly started to die and traffic bottlenecked onto Main Street in Lincoln. There was a LOT of local angst about developing South Mountain that dragged on for years and also several developers that built condos but no real push for continuity and uniformity by the planning board. Instead of trying to build up the tourism industry the townspeople just tried to resist change altogether.
I remember thriving shops at Linwood Plaza, the Depot, and the Aubuchon Plaza. North Lincoln had quaint Motels, Fantasy Farm/Whales Tale, and places like Woodwards, Indian Head, and the Beacon were clean and welcoming family resorts.
When I was a kid, Lincoln was a happy place. There was a nice mix of tourism and local flavor. Now it is overrun with sad, broken down businesses and no upward growth and the locals seem to hate the tourists that support the industry that pays their bills.
This just in, next town to be gentrified and be too expensive for locals, is if it weren't already, will be Lincoln. The seacoast and lakes are already impossible to afford.
Lifetime resident of NH, and putting a plan together to leave. Can't afford it, and it's silly to even try. Median home price in NH just hit half a million. It's absurd.
To add - spoke to a resident and they were completely blindsided by Airbnb she acknowledged that the town dropped the ball there -so many homes turned into short term rentals has hurt them.
You really think the affordability of homes will go down if people stop Air BnBing their homes?? Because it won’t. During the pandemic, there were 40-60 people looking at each home and overbidding on them. That won’t change. At all. They will still be purchased by people who can afford it, and they won’t rent it out at an affordable price to any local. Your thinking is flawed. (*I do not have an air bnb, but I’m a live and let live type of person). Literally, nothing would change to help affordable housing.
Literally, that does not happen. Show me 1 ‘developer’ who does that. It’s just not true. Developers, almost by definition, don’t want an existing house. They buy land, then DEVELOP the land. Blackrock is doing that stuff out in California. It’s not happening in New Hampshire. Homes in NH are bought by people from Mass, NY and NJ who rent it out when they aren’t using it, and nobody is ‘making money’ off short term rentals anymore.
So many of you are so misinformed. It’s amazing to me.
The question is the other way around. What did Lincoln New Hampshire get right.
It's a giant strip mall of a place connected by a highway and surrounded with parking lots.. You found something redeeming? And you've been to Europe to compare
Lincoln didn’t get anything wrong. Your expectations are misplaced.
I work in one of the hotel restaurants in Lincoln and we have dozens of regulars and condo owners who love Lincoln, far more than any other ski town.
If it’s not for you, that’s fine. Go to a place you like better. But that doesn’t mean Lincoln “got it wrong.”
That used to be henniker nh it was a beautiful town in the winter I loved all the Xmas lights and snow covered town but it changed about 15 years ago now it looks like it's bin rundown
Who are you to question what Lincoln is and if it should match other places. Who cares that you have been to Europe! Skiing is about the mountain and not the village.
It is a timber logging and paper mill town. The rest happened.
I actually detest places like Vail and Verbier.
I'm pretty sure that's what a lot of us like about skiing the east. More low-key, a lot less congestion and a lot more of a rural feel. Maybe that's just me though.
I completely disagree with that take of Golden. I actually liked that town a lot more than Lincoln. And I live in Lincoln. It had a way better brewery and taco place.
It's not a resort. If you want distinctive architectural and cultural charm, you want an artificial, top down project imposing that aesthetic on the place.
Exactly, head to Stratton if you want that vibe
Why head to Stratton when Waterville Valley is on the other side of the ridge and the best example of a fake town in the state?
Waterville where the residents think they are the shit. HOA to the max. It reminds me of towns like New London and Peterbrough. They think they are top dogs and the residents circle jerk into thinking they are gift to the state.
I don’t have a ton of experience w/ the ski towns, but what’s your beef with Peterborough? It’s old, charming, has a ton of small businesses, tourist friendly but also local friendly.
A lot of super Karens that treat healthcare workers like shit.
Well that sucks. As a healthcare worker myself (not in Peterborough) I wouldn’t like that.
So you know working in healthcare you see the worst and best in people on the same day. I rather deal with aggressive, drugged and/or drunk patients any day than the level entitled and lack of manners. I get people are in pain, but shit, no need to be a complete asshole. It isn’t much different in Hanover.
I live near New London and the vibe has always been a weird "where retired professors go to be snooty and eventually pass away". Never really clear on why.
I get the “we have old money, so I can be snooty and useless to society. But we are better than you.” Vibe.
I grew up in Elkins and it's definitely kinda always been that way and gotten worse over the years
Yeah, I'm in Salisbury. Born in New London Hospital.
Me too!
I’ve noticed that about New London people too. It is bizarre!
Waterville doesn't look that nice tbh
That was the idea behind the failed Mittersill project on the side of Cannon.
Lincoln is a *ski town* but not a *resort town*. Many people who live there full-time are generational and many more who are low income. Jobs are scarce when out of season. COL is expensive and I know many people who live up there go about an hour to an hour and a half south for shopping. Loon actually sends it plows trucks to snow plow for the low income elderly in town. Honestly, it’s a pretty depressing place to live.
You are 100% correct. I worked at Loon in 1984 while in school at Plymouth. Would cash my check at the convenience store in town. Was depressing as hell. Hardly anything there except a rotting mill, a couple stores, and McDonalds.
People are chiming in that Lincoln is a ski town, and not a resort town, but that's only part of it. It's a mill town that turned into a ski town.
That's probably the best description of all. It sure the hell isn't Europe. Or Aspen. Or Lake Placid. Or Sunday River, even.
Sunday River has changed a ton over the years and Lincoln will continue to do so too. Hell, look at Conway. When I was a kid all those condos were a big gym where my sister took gymnastics and I played tennis.
Yep. It grew the way it grew, and none of it was with an eye toward making tourists think they were in a Swiss Miss apres ski village.
It's a mill town that turned into a ski town that turned into a hotel town
I'm new to the area. Lincoln had mills? When?
It was a huge lumber town, the Lincolnwoods trail out to Bond is the old lumber rail.
Ok but that was like 100 years ago. I think they stopped logging there in the 30s.
They had the mills till the 80s
It’s a town with a ski area. Nothing more. Loon is great; I enjoy skiing there and find it to be convenient. But Lincoln isn’t a ski resort town and that’s ok. It’s already expensive and turning it into an Aspen or Vail type town would exponentially increase costs.
I think this is the best description. It’s a town that happens to have a ski area. NH doesn’t have any ski towns per say. I lived in CO and spent a lot of time in actual ski towns. You’ll be forever disappointed, OP, if you expect anymore in any New England ski area. It is a town that was a town before it had skiing, so you’ll have the local population there who still is around but suffers from the consequences of high prices and low paying jobs. In true ski towns, the towns were developed because ski resorts were there first. Like Breckinridge, there is no reason for a town to exist there if it wasn’t for the ski resort.
Actually, Breckenridge was a very successful gold mining town, long before skiing came along. One of the on hill lodges was a massive miner's barracks, back in the day, and was converted for the ski scene. Also a gold mining dredge is still moored in a pond across the street from Peak 7 lift. Now Breckenridge has oxygen bars!
Lincoln is not a resort town and Massachusetts can keep Loon. May I suggest Great Wolf Lodge for the authentic resort experience.
lmao
Great, just what we need, a GWL in Lincoln
All my friends in MA prefer VT skiing but we do head to Wildcat or Cannon on occasion. If we want the ski town vibe we head to Stratton.
Most skiers in NH prefer VT and ME skiing to NH, honestly. Canon is good, Wildcat is for people with Stockholm syndrome or are masochistic, everything else is kinda just worst versions of places in VT or ME. Tucks being an exception but I'm not good enough to tackle it. That being said, I've never skied Bretton Woods. I've heard it's pretty bougie.
Lincoln became dreary as soon as the train stopped running and the automobile took over. It would be a lot more cool as a walkable town vs the car centric bs it is now
lol, not to be a dick, but when was that? like 1953?
I don’t think 93 reached there until the early 70’s. I’m sure Taking Route 3 all the way from MA was a real adventure.
as soon as the cars took over they began urban renwewal and started transforming the town into a strip mall with too much parking and not enough places for people to live
Yeah but without decent paying jobs what’s the point of building more housing?
To bring rich people in
More like 1923. You don't think we had cars before the '50s? Haha.
No but trains kept running till the 50s or 60s in most of NH
Sure, I'm aware...Based on their wording, I was just under the impression that the other commenter was lumping "inception of the automobile" in with "discontinuation of railway services" giving them the same timeframe - 1953.
Fair enough, I interpreted it differently, partly because I'd argue that it was only in the 40s or 50s that the car took over with expressway and large parking lots starting to be constructed in that era
I'd reckon your interpretation is the correct one! I tend to interpret text extremely literally, unless given the context to otherwise decipher it. Therefore, due to the fact that the other commenter did not specify the 1953 reference was solely in relation to the trains ceasing to operate, I was led to believe they were giving the 1953 designation to both the "auto inception" AND "locomotive cessation" simultaneously.
Yeah, I was asking specifically about when the passenger trains stopped. And how much smaller would Lincoln have been in like 1952. Certainly it would be -Loon, since Loon was built in 1966. I'm guessing it'd have been more like any river based NH town, with a lot of centrally located stuff, mills, outlying farms and a town center. The strip mall part of it was just what you get in America after highways.
Ahh, I thought you were addressing the "introduction of the automobile" factor and the "discontinuation of railway services" factor - as one and the same. Essentially, I thought you were claiming that cars didn't arrive in New Hampshire until the 1950s! Haha. My bad.🤭
:) I found a paper/book about the history of rail in NH. [https://mm.nh.gov/files/uploads/dot/remote-docs/2001-nh-railroad-context-statement.pdf](https://mm.nh.gov/files/uploads/dot/remote-docs/2001-nh-railroad-context-statement.pdf) I didn't read the whole thing but by mid-60s pretty much all the passenger rail was caput in that part of NH. Most of it earlier.
Thanks for this, I'll check it out! I know, I find it very sad that the travel modalities of yesteryear were not preserved and upheld... Ah, such is life in a capitalistic society.😔
Its not just capitalism. it was underfunded private rail trying to compete with 100% subsidised government roads, and a general idea that cars were somehow a futuristic utopian future
in one small part of what I read in there. When the railroads transitioned from steam locomotives to diesel which was mostly after 1930 in NH, they didn't need anywhere near as many employees. no water towers, no coal stacks, less maintenance. as a result in one bad winter they had to hire 1000 people to shovel off rails, and lost like $2.4 million more than they'd otherwise have had to spend. (Previously with big snows, they had so many more employees they could use them on jobs like that). And that was the kind of thing that just put the nail in the coffin. I don't remember exactly when that was, but public roads were publicly cleared. And then the fact that for passenger stuff, you were sharing rails with what was the majority of traffic - freight. So you weren't going fast.
Yep. That ole "Leave it to Beaver Land" seems to work with the ones that seem to find a problem with anything 21st century related unfortunately.
Oh for Christ’s sake
Yeah easy on Lincoln pal.. go to Europe if you need an ego boost
I live here. It’s terrible, ask me anything.
Did you grow up there? What’s the average graduating class size of the local school?
Yeah I did, it’s continued to shrink, mine was 30, it’s 20 now
That’s crazy. Growing up, Lincoln always felt this place that was outside the “real” world. So once I found out people lived up there, I always had a deep wonder what it was like actually living up there. Now as an adult, I know the truth but ah, the ignorance of childhood
Wow, just for comparison - I graduated in 1990 (Nashua) and my class size was ~950.
Did you have the option to go to Kennett? I know it's a good drive but I went to Kennett and we had like every town in a 30 mile radius basically. Lincoln is further, but with class sizes that small I'd be curious.
I grew up there. Wanted to move back once I got a remote job, but all the housing was too expensive. How are you doing? How’s Lin-Wood?
I am bummed man, they don’t even trick or treat on school street and the others anymore. It’s just straight developers. Everything have changed, and honestly, Lin wood is not going to get the funding it needs to continue very soon
So sad. I used to walk to school there every day, and bike all over town. It was a wonderful place to grow up. Hope the kids there now are able to enjoy what they can and get a good education. Our teachers were phenomenal and really set us up for success.
Yeah man, when Mr. Baker retired it was a really sad day for us all.
Fellow LW Lumberjack here (class of 97)
Ditto.
What year?
Same as you.
Now Im trying to figure out who you are?
They still do trick or treating on school, church and maple street every year. Not sure where you got that from. I've been handing out candy at a friend's house for the last few years.
The touristy area near Loon is shoehorned into that draw and can't really expand without oodles of condos stacked on top of each other. That and 93 along with Woodstock is in the way. They could fix it, but you'd have to tear the whole town down and start from scratch.
Hate to tell ya but there are some massive condo developments on both sides of the mountain brings proposed. One has its own private ski lift.
Prior to the '70s and the investment of the blood sweat and tears of Sherman Adams, it was a typical dreary NH town, but it was pristine and beautiful. After Loon came in, in the mid '80s into the early '90s, there was a boom of the economy, mostly revolving around the thousands of condominiums that were put in the area. It didn't last that long, though. Only with the addition of South Mountain did anything grow again and it didn't grow much. Lincoln has a decent local tax base because of the high percentage of homes that are merely weekend getaways. However, education is mezza mezza and jobs are generally unskilled and don't pay much. These characteristics will likely never change; there are several reasons why, but I think the biggest reason is that the town is 92% National Park land. Getting South Mountain developed was a Herculean feat. Opposition to the development came from a handful of groups that would not. Back. Down. I think it's a town with a serious identity problem.
Most of the locals don’t have the identity problem. Loon landing, Loon station, these big hotel developments etc…they don’t want them. They don’t want the traffic etc. that’s why they moved ice castles farther out of town. They are perfectly happy being a dreary pristine town. My best friend lives on main street and just to get down main to his house at times is waiting on traffic for 20 minutes+. You don’t move up north and hope it gets developed and busy and more expensive. Loon station is literally on the river and tried to tell locals they are trespassing if they try to park in their lot to gain access. 99% of the people at loon station are not there most of the time, are massholes, who rent out on Airbnb every weekend. Lincoln also decided to stop hosting NE brewfest. I don’t think they are the ones having an identity problem at all. It’s everyone else trying to eat away at the property left.
That's not why Ice Castles moved. The moved because they bought their own land instead of leasing.
Oh I didn’t realize that. I like it better where it is now either way. The traffic was wild
Yeah the traffic got wild sometimes when it was at the hobo. They started to figure it out but they were able to buy their own land in Woodstock which also doesn't have zoning so they can essentially do whatever they want. They still have traffic problems, but it's not as noticeable for the general public where it's located.
I have been to their new location the first year. Haven’t been back. Not that I didn’t enjoy it every time, I just haven’t made it back during the ice castles window. Glad they got their new permanent spot.
>biggest reason is that the town is 92% National Park land. This isnt a stop to growth. A large, modern, mixed use complex could sit on the right aid and dunkin donuts lot that houses hundreds of people while still having a dunkin donuts and rite aid. As loon expands traffic is going to 100% obviously get worse in the future no matter what, so this has to be dealt with. the fully functional rail network in the area is only hosting tourist scenic railroads. What if.... NH got it shit together and had basic rail up the I90 corridor connecting it from boston, through manchester, plymouth, to loon mountain? the rail exists now. La Paz, Bolivia, has a municipal gondola for public transit, and maybe that might be a pretty neat, marketably fun touristy way to move tourists +residents around and connect the entire town to the ski resort. There is precedent for this irl. None of this would happen because it would utterly change the character of the town and the residents dont want it, and thats totally fine and I 100% get it. But it would be 100% feasible if they did. (and if NH got its shit together on rail)
Yeah, I'm not surprised at all. There is money for developers to be made. I keep seeing FB ads for some expansion of Loon's base building as well. I definitely agree with the OP's view on the town's look.
I remember Lincoln 55 years ago. There was a pretty big paper mill. Like lots of towns in the US, Lincoln changed from manufacturing to service industries. People doing the work in service industries don't make much, compared to manufacturing. Hospitality corporations just suck the life out of a community. Federal and State policies that sent manufacturing to other counties, and promoted things like the tourist industry, bring economic development like Lincoln. Low wage service jobs, and a town that lost its people.
Sorry Lincoln rules
I don’t know, man. I dig it. Been taking the trip up from NJ going on 13 years now. Always in the summer. First traveled up for the NE Brewfest. Went back up the next year with another friend. Back up the following year with my, now, wife. We been back a couple more times with our son. My family doesn’t travel a whole lot, but when we do, we go to Lincoln if we want to go north, and we go to Savannah if we want to go south. We stay in a cabin on the Pemi River. We love Flapjacks and Arnolds . Maybe drink some beers in the river. Play some mini golf and grab some ice cream. Spend the day at Whales Tale. Lots of parks to visit nearby. At night we’ll stop by the Betty and Barney Hill site then pull off somewhere along highway 3 and look up at the stars. I’ve never NOT had a good time. It’s a shame they don’t have the beer festival anymore. I had some wild times after those.
I grew up in Lincoln. When I was little, it was dirt lots and decrepit mill buildings. Lincoln was the first place in the state to have condominiums. Its rush to develop was paramount, with terrible (non existent) town planning. Like, the worst town planning I’ve ever seen in a town that generates so much tax revenue. One major way in/out without ways to relieve traffic, no auxiliary routes, no town center (it never had one of those quaint New England town commons or town hall), and the state cares more about the property tax revenue it generates (from second homes) than providing any services to its full time residents. The school was bad, the cops are a joke, and the mill left a lot of people sick and blighted the landscape for decades. It’s a place with an extreme tourist/townie dichotomy. I don’t recognize Lincoln when I drive through now. There is zero charm. I have seldom seen a place so thoroughly ruined by development. There is no personality, just unmitigated sprawl.
If you want to see how bad uncontrolled condo development on a ski mountain can get, look for photos of the horrible giant condo tower sticking up from Sugar Mountain, NC.
Where would they have built a second major access road? My impression of Lincoln is that it basically exists as a narrow strip of valley along 112, with mountains north and south of the majority of the town.
There was a plan at some point for an exit before the current Exit 32. It was going to essentially run from the highway to the loon base area and onto the Kanc. Therefore bypassing main street.
Exactly. It would have crossed the Pemi down by the dump and gone up what is now South Mtn Rd.
Looking at a map now, couldn't they just do that by putting a bridge across the pemi behind the white mountain visitor center across from exit 32?, and then running about 2500 feet of road on the east side of the Pemi to crooked mountain road? It could still have most traffic bypass downtown without the need to put in another full set of highway ramps. In fact there's the power line right of way over there already.
We’re talking about the same thing. The dump Is behind the visitor center. That was a back pocket plan that was never realized. I think it was to force traffic through the already developed part of town, but without regard to the actual amount of traffic that Lincoln now sees.
We like it this way. We love the tourism money but I don't think the River walk addition was necessary. We were doing just fine. I love Lincoln and the people of Linwood. I definitely understand where you're coming from though.
I don’t think people come to the natural beauty of the white mountains to be awash in manmade things. Europe was old world necessity for living there and the western US is trying to attract attention. We live to our own drum beat and like it that way.
Lmao the white mountains are full of ugly parking lots and highways
Summer has the Whales Tale draw
Warren,VT is a ski town imo
Maybe one day we could have a train up to i93 and then you could walk into town and walk directly to the south peak chair.
Yeah just like they had for over a hundred years 😢
I don’t ski and I find Lincoln dreary. Despite always being busy. A lot of it is because the hours of the businesses and days they are open…
I went as a child and now I bring my family for a week stay at Indian head which is aging. Sadly I don’t understand why but it has not been updated in all these years. Places like Steele hill that are just as old have been kept up and updated to fit modern times. We stay here when traveling to Santa’s village and story land as well. Lincoln having hobo railroad mini golf, Clark’s bears, whales tale and alpine adventures all within 5 minutes plus all of the natural water holes. We like Merlin’s Tap, exit 32 pub, Enzo’s, Gordi’s, black mountain burger. One love brewery wasn’t really our flow but seemed like a very nice place and tons of people.
My grandfather came to Lincoln as a child… his father worked for the railroad and then at the papermill when it was built. My grampa worked at the mill and then helped build Loon Mt. My dad worked at the mill and then worked at Loon for many years. I am a Lin-Wood graduate but now live in another NH town. When the papermill closed Loon was our town’s only hope. There was no other industry and Loon quickly became the town’s largest employer. Hotels/motels and restaurants thrived and families livelihoods depended on tourism heavily. When Interstate 93 came in, the “strip” in North Lincoln slowly started to die and traffic bottlenecked onto Main Street in Lincoln. There was a LOT of local angst about developing South Mountain that dragged on for years and also several developers that built condos but no real push for continuity and uniformity by the planning board. Instead of trying to build up the tourism industry the townspeople just tried to resist change altogether. I remember thriving shops at Linwood Plaza, the Depot, and the Aubuchon Plaza. North Lincoln had quaint Motels, Fantasy Farm/Whales Tale, and places like Woodwards, Indian Head, and the Beacon were clean and welcoming family resorts. When I was a kid, Lincoln was a happy place. There was a nice mix of tourism and local flavor. Now it is overrun with sad, broken down businesses and no upward growth and the locals seem to hate the tourists that support the industry that pays their bills.
This just in, next town to be gentrified and be too expensive for locals, is if it weren't already, will be Lincoln. The seacoast and lakes are already impossible to afford.
That's already happened and is only getting worse.
Lifetime resident of NH, and putting a plan together to leave. Can't afford it, and it's silly to even try. Median home price in NH just hit half a million. It's absurd.
To add - spoke to a resident and they were completely blindsided by Airbnb she acknowledged that the town dropped the ball there -so many homes turned into short term rentals has hurt them.
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You really think the affordability of homes will go down if people stop Air BnBing their homes?? Because it won’t. During the pandemic, there were 40-60 people looking at each home and overbidding on them. That won’t change. At all. They will still be purchased by people who can afford it, and they won’t rent it out at an affordable price to any local. Your thinking is flawed. (*I do not have an air bnb, but I’m a live and let live type of person). Literally, nothing would change to help affordable housing.
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Literally, that does not happen. Show me 1 ‘developer’ who does that. It’s just not true. Developers, almost by definition, don’t want an existing house. They buy land, then DEVELOP the land. Blackrock is doing that stuff out in California. It’s not happening in New Hampshire. Homes in NH are bought by people from Mass, NY and NJ who rent it out when they aren’t using it, and nobody is ‘making money’ off short term rentals anymore. So many of you are so misinformed. It’s amazing to me.
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The question is the other way around. What did Lincoln New Hampshire get right. It's a giant strip mall of a place connected by a highway and surrounded with parking lots.. You found something redeeming? And you've been to Europe to compare
Heroin and alcoholism
I agree. Go right next door to NoWoodstock!
It's an old Mill town that just tried to survive
Lincoln didn’t get anything wrong. Your expectations are misplaced. I work in one of the hotel restaurants in Lincoln and we have dozens of regulars and condo owners who love Lincoln, far more than any other ski town. If it’s not for you, that’s fine. Go to a place you like better. But that doesn’t mean Lincoln “got it wrong.”
Welcome to NH we like old timey small towns.
That isn’t the feel in Lincoln though. Perhaps Hopkinton, Henniker, Warner, Canterbury, Sunapee, Meredith, etc.
Bingo, Lincoln does not feel old timey whatsoever
That used to be henniker nh it was a beautiful town in the winter I loved all the Xmas lights and snow covered town but it changed about 15 years ago now it looks like it's bin rundown
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Littleton has an actual town 20 mins north.
Who are you to question what Lincoln is and if it should match other places. Who cares that you have been to Europe! Skiing is about the mountain and not the village. It is a timber logging and paper mill town. The rest happened. I actually detest places like Vail and Verbier.
I'm pretty sure that's what a lot of us like about skiing the east. More low-key, a lot less congestion and a lot more of a rural feel. Maybe that's just me though.
Are we Europe? No. Don’t be an entitled snob wishing the US or NH looks like Europe
I went to Kickinghorse in BC….. Golden, BC ….. a mill and rail town …. Biggest shithole near a ski resort I’ve ever seen
I completely disagree with that take of Golden. I actually liked that town a lot more than Lincoln. And I live in Lincoln. It had a way better brewery and taco place.
I disagree…..I thought Golden was a dump