Founded in 1932, the non-profit Mount Washington Observatory continues its weather monitoring and research to this day.īe sure to visit the Mount Washington Museum, a human and natural history museum located on the summit and operated by the Mount Washington Observatory. The highest surface wind spreed ever observed by man - 231 miles per hour, was recorded there on Apby the Mount Washington Observatory. Mount Washington is justly famed for its weather extremes. When the railway's builder, Sylvester Marsh, first petitioned the New Hampshire Legislature for the right to build the railway, they were so skeptical of the project's feasibility that they granted him the right to build 'the railway to the moon.' The Mount Washington Cog Railway, the world's first rack and pinion railroad, was completed eight years later. In 1861, when the Mount Washington Auto Road opened as a carriage road, it was considered the nation's first man-made tourist attractions. Ethan Allen Crawford later improved the path, making it a bridle path for horses, and completing the work in 1840. From there, on a clear day, it's often possible to see into five states - New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York - even into Canada.Įarly settlers Abel Crawford and his son, Ethan Allen Crawford, built the first footpath to the summit in 1819 today it is the oldest continuously maintained footpath in the US. Today its summit, a State Park, is visited by over a quarter of a million people from all over the world each year. Darby Field was the first European settler to climb it, in 1642.

Giovanni da Verrazano was the first European to see it, from the waters off New Hampshire's seacoast, in 1524.

Native Americans called it 'Agiocochook' and didn't climb it, believing that its summit was the home of the Great Spirit. It's the highest mountain in northeastern North America: 6,288-foot Mount Washington.

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