Since the development of photography in the midnineteenth century, the camera has been used as a tool of both discovery and preservation. Photographs bring alive our image of the past, and can open a floodgate of memories and nostalgia or inspire curiosity and a sense of history. The White Mountain region, with its lofty, granitecapped peaks, steep-sided notches and sweeping valleys, long ago captured the public's imagination. The "Cristall hills" may have been known to European explorers as early as the 1520s when "high mountains" were sighted off the New England coast by Giovanni da Verrazano; Darby Field's pioneering 1642 ascent of Mount Washington initiated a period of discovery that is still taking place today. Based on several remarkable photographic collections, this book presents a chronological record of the people, localities and events that have given these ancient hills their extraordinary character. These images, combined with illuminating and insightful captions, bring the reader on a nostalgic journey through the rich social and cultural history of what was once called the "Switzerland of America."