North Conway

The valley was Abenaki country: early English settlers called the area Pequawket, after an Abenaki village that stretched down the Saco River to a stockaded centre at what is now Fryeburg, Maine. In 1765 the colonial governor Benning Wentworth chartered the town of Conway, named after the British politician and soldier Henry Seymour Conway, and North Conway grew as one of its villages on the river meadows beneath the mountains.

In the 19th century the valley became a magnet for landscape painters. Benjamin Champney, who settled in North Conway in 1853, popularised the Conway valley, and John Frederick Kensett's Mount Washington from the Valley of Conway, distributed as a print to more than 13,000 subscribers, became one of the most effective advertisements for the White Mountains. The paintings, known collectively as White Mountain art, drew tourists, especially after the railway reached North Conway in 1872, and inns and taverns multiplied.

Winter added a second season. From 1932 "snow trains" carried skiers to what became known as the birthplace of American skiing, and the local businessman Harvey Gibson opened Cranmore for the 1937–38 season, adding the Skimobile, a lift of small cars on a wooden track, a year later. In 1939 the Austrian ski teacher Hannes Schneider, briefly imprisoned in Austria for his anti-Nazi views, came to run the ski school, and his family owned Cranmore until 1984. In 1974 Dwight Smith, a Boston and Maine Railroad employee, founded the Conway Scenic Railroad with two local businessmen, and outlet stores later made the village a shopping destination.

The valley's identity is outdoor recreation. Cathedral Ledge and White Horse Ledge make it one of the main rock-climbing areas in the north-eastern United States, and the trails of the White Mountain National Forest draw hikers in every season. Winter brings skiers to Cranmore and the nearby resorts of Attitash, Black Mountain and Wildcat, and the village is where they gather in the evenings.

The painters' legacy is part of local pride. White Mountain art was produced by more than four hundred artists in the 19th century to promote the region, and the view that Champney and Kensett made famous — Mount Washington above the meadows of the Saco — still rises over the valley.

North Conway is also a shopping town, and the outlet centres on Route 16 make holiday weekends as busy as the ski slopes. Behind the commerce, the valley keeps the rhythm of a mountain community, where the weather on Mount Washington, the state of the trails and the arrival of the first snow are everyday conversation.

North Conway, counted by the census as a separate place that includes part of neighbouring Kearsarge, had 2,116 residents at the 2020 census. The wider town of Conway, the most populous community in Carroll County, had 9,822 at the same census and an estimated 10,308 in 2025.

Tourism is the town's biggest economic engine, with lodging and rental properties serving visitors to the eastern White Mountains and the Mount Washington Valley; the technology sector is the second-largest source of jobs. Much work is seasonal, following the foliage, ski and summer peaks.

Life runs along Route 16 and the Saco River. Residents shop and work in the village and along the outlet strip, drive the back roads to avoid holiday traffic, and spend free time on the trails, rivers and slopes that bring the visitors. The Saco forms the western edge of the village, and the low ridge on the east side of Route 16 frames the valley.

The food is that of northern New England: hearty breakfasts with maple syrup, chowder and seafood brought inland from the coast, and apple cider and cider doughnuts in autumn. After a day of hiking or skiing, the valley's restaurants lean towards generous, informal meals — burgers, barbecue, pizza and pub food — and many places are geared to families.

Brewpubs are part of the valley's evenings, and a smokehouse and brewery on the White Mountain Highway caters to children as well as adults, in a valley where much of the eating out is built around families and visitors coming back from the trails and the slopes.

Most restaurants sit along Main Street in the village and on Route 16 to the south, among the outlet centres, with a few more along the roads towards the ski areas. In summer and autumn, farm stands along the valley roads sell local produce, maple syrup and baked goods.