White River Junction, August 1915

A summer panorama of the junction, with a hotel that had ten years left.

Panorama of White River Junction in the summer of 1915, looking north from the south-facing hillside above town.

Note the brick building with twin towers, slightly left of center. That’s the Junction House. It was renamed the Hotel Coolidge in 1924 and burned three months later. The Hotel Coolidge we know now is its 1925 replacement.

At the far left of the panorama, the cleared hillside drops down to where the White River meets the Connecticut. (For more on that view: West Lebanon and White River Junction and Part 2.)

I had it colorized; some people will prefer it. The right side is washed out because the photographer’s lens, mid-sweep, passed the sun on its way around the arc. (More on that strange camera here.)

This is the first of a small project. Between 1912 and 1917 a Brooklyn photographer named Henry Barreuther made at least eighteen of these of Vermont towns, plus a Connecticut and Massachusetts handful. The Library of Congress has kept them all, and we’ll be working through them this summer.

Original Photo for saving or zooming
(Library of Congress, no known restrictions on publication)

Cameron Cross

for the

Norwich Historical Society