From Terror to Tourism
Crawford Notch and the Willey Slide: Legendary Landscape, Art, Science, & History
As we approach the 200th anniversary of the infamous Willey Slide in Crawford Notch, NH on August 28, 2026 we will explore the history of the event as well as the geography and geology that caused the slide. We will look at the surprising first artist to depict the site, and those artists that followed. We will examine the role of the event in the rise of tourism in the White Mountains and how a visit to the site was promoted in guidebooks, maps, stereoviews and souvenirs. Finally we will review what you can see if you visit the area there today.
Painting of the site by Charles Codman showing the steep, glacially gouged valley. Conway Public Library
From a cartouche in an 1854 Leavitt map showing the Willey family fleeing while the house is spared. Below image: “The Willey Family consisted of 9 persons. Capt. Willey, his wife and children, and two men by names of Nickerson & Allen. All were buried beneath an avalanche or slide from the mountains attended by the awful calamity of the destruction of a whole family on the 28th of August, A.D. 1826.”