Most of Hart's Location was built recently: 0.0% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1974. Below: 12 old photos and papers, maps from 1895 on, and the census since 1870.
Lost two-thirds of its people between 1890 and 1960, then grew 9-fold.
16 censuses, 1870–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Hart's Location’s Wikipedia page.
On the map
Hart's Location on the map, 1895 to 1950
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Hart's Location. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1895Crawford Notch sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Hart's Location.
By decade
Hart's Location, decade by decade
2 decades in the archive, from the 1850s to the 1870s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Hart's Location was named after Colonel John Hart of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In 1772, the land was granted to Thomas Chadbourne, also of Portsmouth. Native Americans used a trail up the Saco River valley through Crawford Notch, and during the French and Indian Wars, many English captives were taken to Canada that way. Despite this, the pass through the White Mountains was otherwise unknown until 1771, when Timothy Nash discovered it hunting moose, and told Governor John Wentworth.
Passages that mention Hart's Location, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Carroll County, New Hampshire1889 · page 943Read the page →
Read the text
Town of Hart's Location. 943 the trestle look up a! the high cliffs and down into the Saco valley. Now we go higher above the tops of the trees. Many m picturesque mountain beighl can be Been. We cross Brook Kedron, and soon, far below, we perceive the Willej House, and the true Notch is entered, with Mount \\ Illard's purple cliffs in Eronl and Mount Webster on the right . Below . the dark waters of Dismal pool are seen. The vallej grows narrower and narrower until al la-t the Qateof the Notch is reached and the ''Great Cut,'' where the railroad splits the mountains, and we arc at the < raw Cord House.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Hart's Location, 1795 to 1974
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (12), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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