Old Images of Coos County, New Hampshire: 10 Historical Facts

Occupying the entire northern third of the state, Coos County (pronounced /koʊ.ɒs/) is New Hampshire’s largest, most rugged, and least densely populated county. Bordered by Canada, Maine, and Vermont, its history is a sweeping tale of vast wilderness, industrial timber empires, and a fiercely independent border culture.

Old Photo of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, taken around 1923

Old photo of a railroad station for sale in Coos Counbty, New Hampshire, in 1936

• An Indigenous Name for "Pine Trees": Long before European settlement, the region was the ancestral home of the Abenaki people, specifically the Cowasuck band. The name "Coos" is derived from the Abenaki word Cohos, which translates directly to "place of the white pines," referring to the massive virgin forests that originally blanketed the river valleys.

• Carved Out of Grafton County: As early settlements expanded northward along the Connecticut and Androscoggin rivers, the remote inhabitants found it incredibly difficult to travel all the way south to settle legal matters. In December 1803, the New Hampshire legislature voted to carve Coos County out of northern Grafton County. Lancaster was designated as the original shire town (county seat), with Berlin later emerging as its industrial powerhouse.

• The Sovereign Republic of Indian Stream: In the early 19th century, a bizarre boundary loophole in the Treaty of Paris left a 250-square-mile tract of northernmost Coos County claimed by both the United States and Great Britain. Fed up with being taxed by both nations, the 300 local settlers rebelled in 1832. They drafted their own constitution, established a small army, and declared themselves the independent Republic of Indian Stream. The sovereign micro-nation existed for three years before the New Hampshire militia marched in, peacefully absorbing it back into the town of Pittsburg.

• The Era of the Great River Drives: During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Coos County became the lumber capital of New England. Every winter, thousands of "lumberjacks" felled giant spruce and pine trees deep in the wilderness. When the spring thaw arrived, "river drivers" risked their lives navigating thousands of floating logs down the roaring currents of the Connecticut and Androscoggin rivers to downstream mills.

• Berlin’s Rise as the "Paper City": Fueled by an abundance of spruce wood and fast-moving water power, the city of Berlin transformed into a global pulp and paper manufacturing giant. By the early 1900s, the Burgess Sulphite Fibre Company in Berlin operated the largest sulfite pulp mill in the entire world, attracting thousands of immigrants—particularly French Canadians—and permanently shaping the cultural and linguistic heritage of the county.

• The Mount Washington Auto Road Milestone: Coos County is home to Mount Washington, the highest peak in the northeastern United States. In 1861, engineers completed the Mount Washington Carriage Road (now the Auto Road), a steep 7.6-mile mountain pass to the summit. It stands as America's oldest continuously operating man-made tourist attraction.

• Midnight Voting in Dixville Notch: The unincorporated place of Dixville Notch achieved global political fame starting in 1960. Under New Hampshire law, small voting precincts can close their polls as soon as 100% of registered voters have cast ballots. For decades, the residents gathered at the historic Balsams Resort at midnight on primary and presidential election days, casting the very first symbolic votes in the nation just minutes past midnight.

• The German POW Camp in Stark: During World War II, a remote logging camp in the Coos County town of Stark was converted into Camp Stark, New Hampshire's only German Prisoner of War camp. From 1944 to 1946, roughly 250 captured German soldiers—mostly from the Afrika Korps—were housed there to help relieve the severe wartime domestic labor shortage by cutting pulpwood for the local paper mills.

• The Evolution of Grand Grand Resorts: While timber drove the economy, the landscape birthed a spectacular summer tourism boom. Tycoons built massive luxury resorts to escape city pollution. While many succumbed to fires over the decades, landmarks like the Omni Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods (completed in 1902) remain standing as architectural masterclasses.

• The Historic 1944 Bretton Woods Conference: In July 1944, Coos County became the focal point of global finance. Delegates from 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. It was here that world leaders designed the post-WWII international monetary system, establishing the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and pegging global currencies to the U.S. dollar.