Traveling Tuesday: The Role of the Mt. Washington Hotel During WWII

Traveling Tuesday: 

The Role of the Mt. Washington Hotel During WWII

Last week, I shared about the four grand hotels that are still operating in New Hampshire. One of those, the Mt. Washington played a critical role at the end of World War II. Located deep in the White Mountains above Crawford Notch in Bretton Woods, the hotel was completed in 1902 and offered luxurious accommodations to anyone who could afford to stay. Sadly, the owner, Joseph Stickney, died of a heart attack the following year.

Over the next decade his wife continued to improve the property, but Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the implementation of income tax put a damper on business. Mrs. Stickney’s nephew inherited the hotel in 1936, but six years later, shuttered the doors because of the war. He sold to a Boston syndicate in 1944 for $450,000 (a huge amount of money back then).

On July 1 of that year, the Bretton Woods Conference commenced with 730 delegates from all forty-

four Allied nations. Years of work preceded the conference, with a preliminary conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey held in mid-June 1944. No where in my research could I unearth who decided that a remote, luxury hotel in the mountains of New Hampshire was the perfect location for the conference, and I can’t imagine the logistics of getting everyone to the facility. Located more than 150 miles from the Boston airport, the hotel is accessed by one hilly, winding road (and it’s not an interstate) that passes through Crawford Notch, elevation 1,923 feet. There is nothing for miles around – no restaurants, no other hotels…nothing.

The conference adjourned three weeks after it started with the delegates signing the Final Act of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference that established the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD – later part of the World Bank Group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and implementing the “Bretton Woods system,” a system of economic order and international cooperation that would help countries recover from the war’s devastation and foster long-term global growth.

Some of the features of the system were an “adjustably pegged foreign exchange market tied to gold, that could only be altered to correct a fundamental disequilibrium,” pledges by member countries to make their currency convertible for trade-related and other current account transactions, and a requirement of member countries to subscribe to IMF’s capital.

The system ended in 1971.

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Ivy's Inheritance

Has she fled one untrustworthy man only to be stuck with another?

Ivy Cregg’s father is a gambler, but this time he’s gone too far. He loses his mining fortune and her along with it in a high-stakes poker game. Unwilling to go along with the deal, she hides out with a friend who tells her about Ms. Crenshaw, owner of the Westward Home & Hearts Mail-Order Bride Agency who is in town. The prospective groom is a wealthy man which seems like an answer to prayer until Ivy discovers he made his fortune in mining. Is he as untrustworthy as her father?

After emigrating to America to fight for the Union during their Civil War, Slade Pendleton moved West while working on the railroad, then headed to the plains of Nebraska to seek his fortune. He was one of the lucky ones and now has everything he could ever want. Except a wife. With the few women in the town already married, he sends for a mail-order bride. The woman arrives carrying the telegram that explains her need to flee, but now that she’s safe, she seems to have no interest in going through with the ceremony. Should he send her packing or try to convince her to stay?

Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Ca3xI6

Photo Credits:

Mt. Washington Hotel: By rickpilot_2000 from Hooksett, USA - Mt. Washington HotelUploaded by jbarta, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26447136 

Delegation: U.N. Monetary Conference (Photo: Associated Press; Photographer: Abe Fox)

New Zealand Report of the conference: By Archives New Zealand from New Zealand - International Monetary Fund formed 1945, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51249801