The center of Hampton after a snowstorm in the mid-1930s. Buildings on right, from left to right, are: the Odd Fellows Building [burned Jan. 27, 1990], "Charlies' [Kierstead] Lunch", (years later name changed to "Hampton Diner", Leon Langlois, owner), First National Stores [FINAST], a tailor shop and a shoe store [Fearer's].

Plowing the road with oxen in front of the Hotel Whittier, early 1900s. The Whittier operated on the northeast corner of Lafayette and Winnacunnet Roads until the end of 1916, and was totally destroyed by fire on January 12, 1917. It was the town center's most popular hotel and restaurant in its day and was the center of Hampton social activity.

The Ocean House Hotel at Hampton Beach, just north of the Casino, early 1900s. This 57-room hotel was built by Wallace D. Lovell in 1900 and was torn down in 1976. A McDonald's restaurant stands at this location today.

Horse and buggy days along Lafayette Road near the end of Watson's Lane. The [Otis] Marston homestead barn can be seen in the background.

Downtown Hampton circa 1910 with horse and carriages, trolley cars, and automobiles all sharing the road.

The first tollbooths on Interstate 95 in Hampton. Despite vehement opposition from local businesses fearing the bypassing of Route One, the state opened the new highway in 1950. Imagine the traffic jams along Route One today had the highway never been built!

Postcard view of a summer day at Hampton Beach in the 1940s or 50s. The large water tower, or "standpipe," which can be seen on Great Boar's Head was built in 1907 and torn down in 1966.

The Leonia Hotel, which stood not far from the beach near the end of High Street, existed only for five short years from 1895 until it burned on July 13, 1900. (Inset) Guests pose for a photo on the hotel's veranda.

Hampton Beach's wooden submarine. Built by English expatriate Thomas Buckley in the 1920s, it never received an engine so was only tested a few times. The 30-foot long football-shaped craft was placed on Hampton Beach at the end of Johnson Avenue in the early 1920s, where it sat for nearly 10 years as the home of its eccentric inventor.

A storm batters the Hampton coastline on White Rocks Island in 1919. White Rocks was a section of beach in the general area of today's state park, extending out across the current harbor inlet toward the Seabrook side. Formerly an island, shifting sands attached it to Hampton Beach before the turn of the century, and buildings sprang up so rapidly that it eventually became the beach's largest cluster of summer cottages. Storms and severe erosion put it back under water by 1928.

Hampton Center in the 1940s. The tower of the Odd Fellow Building appears in the back, and before that is a commercial block housing the Hampton Diner, First National Store, Sturgis Clothing Store and Tobey's Drug Store. At right in Depot Square can be seen the WWII Honor Roll.

Hampton School Orchestra, c. 1920s, rehearsing in the Centre School Auditorium. [Music Director is Esther B. Coombs, standing upper right. Student on extreme right is Alice Anna (White) Dalton, Class of 1928, Hampton Academy.]