From collection Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection
Mountain Home, Crawford Notch Road, Batlett, NH. 316.
View of a tourist home in the mountains. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The glass plates would be sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. A modest, 19th-century house converted to tourist accommodation, the Mountain Home is seen sheltered by an Elm tree against the backdrop of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The increase in automobile tourist trafffic to scenic northeastern places like Crawford Notch gave rise to such informal roadside guest lodgings before the business model of the tourist cabin or motel, and offered an affordable alternative to the hotel. The guest house is clearly identified by signs at the road reading: "Mountain Home/ Breakfast/ Supper/ Rooms/ Sandwiches/ Chicken Pie 50 cents, (and) Camp Grounds/ Drive In", for those with tents. Nearby are a pair of early gas pumps labeled "Socony Special Gasoline/ Motor Oil". A simple table and chairs have been set up in the front yard. Nearby is some sort of stand along the road. The house and its barns are a good example of connected dwelling and barn architecture of northern New England. The larger, back barn, has apparently been converted to a garage.
