The Old Man of the Mountain

Jeff Wignall

The Old Man of the Mountain

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What’s to be done when a symbol of a region or city is no more?  What if Paris no longer had the Eiffel Tower?  Would anybody go to Pisa if the Leaning Tower fell?  How about the Hollywood sign or the Statue of Liberty? Hard to imagine.  And yet, this is precisely what happened in 2003 when the New Hampshire’s state emblem, the Old Man in the Mountain, collapsed.

The Old Man of the Mountain was a rock formation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire that, when viewed from the north, resembled the profile of an old man.  It was made up of five granite blocks that protruded precariously from the side of Cannon Mountain, 1200 feet above Profile Lake.  The Old Man was 40 feet tall and 25 feet wide and went by various names including ‘The Old Man in the Mountains’, ‘The Profile’ and simply ‘The Old Man’.  It was originally discovered by surveyors in the early 1800’s and quickly captured the public’s imagination.   Daniel Webster wrote: "Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men." In the 20^th century, the Old Man attracted tourists from around the world to the Franconia Notch area, bolstering the local tourism industry.

The Old Man of the Mountain became the state emblem of New Hampshire in 1945.  It appears on license plates, highway signs and the state quarter of 2000.  Ironically, it was already well known that the Old Man’s days were numbered as annual freezing and thawing slowly cracked the granite shelves that made up his visage.  Various engineering projects tried to slow its demise with steel rods and turnbuckles anchoring the forehead to the mountain and a concrete gutter diverting runoff away from the profile.  For years, crews risked their lives to secure the Old Man against gravity.  But at 2:00 am   May 3, 2003, gravity won and the Old Man came crashing down.  The reaction to the news was heartfelt grief as people left flowers at the site for months after the collapse.

Turnbuckles that held the stones in place - for a while.  Photo: Notchnet.com

So what is a grieving state to do when its state emblem is gone (along with the tourists it drew)?  One early idea involved building a replica of the Old Man but this proposal was quickly rejected.  On the anniversary of the collapse, coin-operated telescopes showing the cliff with and without the Old Man were installed at the old viewing area.  In 2007, plans for an Old Man in the Mountain Memorial were unveiled.  The planned memorial has three components.  First, a series of viewing tubes at various heights will reconstruct the view of the Old Man.  Second, five huge granite monoliths will align to form the Old Man’s profile.  Finally, a gateway honoring the individuals who labored to save the Old Man frames the entrance to the memorial.  Fundraising for the memorial suffered from the collapse of the economy in 2008.  Nonetheless, ground was broken for the first phase of the project in 2010.    

Here is a video describing the project.

Question of the Day: Who was named the official caretaker of the Old Man in 1987?