07/24/2026
A Winter Adventure on Church Street, Lincoln, New Hampshire — February 1923
Imagine being in Lincoln on a crisp February day in 1923. You've traveled north from Massachusetts, escaping the city for fresh mountain air and a vacation unlike anything you've experienced before. Your luggage is tucked away at the Lincoln Hotel, the horses are harnessed, and before you stretches a village blanketed in snow.
Someone suggests a photograph.
The result is this remarkable image.
The guests smile from a horse-drawn sleigh on Church Street, bundled in heavy coats and cloche hats, with St. Joseph's Catholic Church rising behind them and the rectory just to its left. At first glance, it seems like an ordinary winter outing. But this was only the beginning of their adventure.
The next morning, these same travelers would board the Parker-Young Company logging railroad bound for the Pemigewasset Wilderness. Long before scenic rail excursions and designated wilderness areas, visitors could venture into the working forests themselves, winding through snow-covered valleys on tracks built to haul timber from the mountains. It was tourism and industry sharing the same rails—a distinctly White Mountains experience that could exist only for a brief moment in history.
This photograph was taken by Winston Pote during his first visit to the White Mountains in 1923. Pote would go on to become one of New England's most celebrated photographers, preserving thousands of scenes that now serve as windows into a rapidly changing region. Looking at his work today, it's easy to forget that he wasn't trying to document history. He was capturing the present.
And perhaps that's what makes this photograph so compelling. No one in the sleigh knew they were posing for future generations. They were enjoying a winter holiday, unaware that, more than a century later, we'd still be wondering where they had come from, what they talked about on the ride, and what they thought when the logging locomotive carried them into the snowy wilderness the next day.
If you had the opportunity to spend a winter day in Lincoln in 1923, what would you be most excited to experience—a horse-drawn sleigh ride through town, or a journey into the mountains aboard a logging railroad?
MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Wed., August 12, 7 pm—"Lost for Decades, Found by Chance: A White Mountain Artist's Masterpiece Returns," with presenter Benjamin Clark
CHEERS TO 40 YEARS! Summer Season Hours at the Museum: Wednesdays, 1-4 pm, Saturdays, 10-1 pm. We're also happy to open by appointment, so please feel free to arrange a visit!
