Happy 50th to Kancamagus Highway

LINCOLN, N.H. – It’s a little jarring to realize something you thought had been around forever is actually younger than you. But the Kancamagus Highway, a 34 and ˝-mile stretch of scenic roadway with a plethora of panoramic views dotting much of it, turns 50 this year, coming to life in 1959 – some six years after I did.
A two-day celebration, Aug. 14-15, is planned to mark the road’s birthday, said Jayne O’Connor, president of White Mountains Attractions in North Woodstock, which along with the U.S. Forest Service is coordinating the celebration.
On Aug. 14 from 9 a.m. to noon there will be interpretive programs at the Lincoln Woods Visitors Center, the Discovery Trail, the Pemigewasset Overlook, the C.L. Graham Wangan Ground Overlook, the Albany Covered Bridge and the Blackberry Crossing Campground.
From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day, there will also be exhibits and historic house tours at the Russell Colbath Historic Site near the halfway point in Albany, which will also be the site of the official celebration ceremony from 2-4 p.m.
The Kanc, as it’s known, is a wickedly wonderful touring road, great for driving briskly and hugging its many twists and turns, and as part of the observance, a “Kruise the Kanc” scenic driving tour of the highway Aug. 15, adding “an historic ambiance in a setting that is largely untouched since the first motorists passed over the road,” O’Connor said. For more info, visit thekanc.com

Up until 1959 when The Kanc opened, largely unpaved, there wasn’t a direct shot from Lincoln to Conway. The trip involved a lengthy traverse through two notches – Franconia and Crawford – as well as through Bartlett and into Conway.
On either side of the present road were two others, one from Lincoln, the other from Albany, that were dead ends, used by forest rangers and loggers. Few but they, O’Connor said, were privy to the Pemigewasset wilderness to the west and the Moat Mountains to the east.
In the 1930s, the White Mountain National Forest was established and the U.S. Forest Service had money for a highway to connect Lincoln and Conway. Laborers were used through the Civilian Conservation Corps. By 1942, construction out of Lincoln was largely done but work out of Albany ceased for World War II.
By 1955, work pushed past what some think is frightening and others find exhilarating – the Kanc’s infamous hairpin turn near the Livermore town line and the 2,855-foot Kancamagus Pass. A year later, one mile remained between the ends and when connected, the road opened with no fanfare, no celebration, no nothing.
“The story of the Kancamagus Highway is one that has not really been told over the years and as we have discovered in our research, there was never a celebration of its opening in the summer of 1959,” O’Connor said. “So it’s appropriate that at the half-century mark, we take time to celebrate this road that is a favorite of many.”
And beautiful enough that in 1996, the road, with absolutely no development – that includes gas stations – along its 34-plus miles, was named a National Scenic Byway by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the only such designation of a road in the Northeast at that time.
Kancamagus (pronounced “can-ka-MAH-gus,” and there is no ‘n’ in it; many mispronounce it “Kancamangus”) was named after a 17th-century Native American chief of the Penacook Confederacy, who tried to keep the peace between his people and the white settlers. But English harassment led to war and in the early 1690s, the tribes of the confederacy scattered and Kancamagus and his people scattered, some as far as Canada.
But the road that bears his name lives on as a peaceful and relaxing place, winding along the Swift River, offering many places to stop, unwind and drink in the beauty of one of New England’s most scenic highways. My recommendation: Lower Falls, a stretch of fast-moving water over smooth rocks that you can sit on and slide down, bumping your butt downriver and cooling off in one of nature’s most fantastic natural rollercoasters. For years, it was my favorite stop on The Kanc.
Of course, I – and The Kanc - was a lot younger then.

Posted by Paul E. Kandarian, Globe correspondent

Photo of the Kancamagus, believed to have been taken in 1959, the year of the opening, courtesy of US Forest Service,