Gunstock Mountain Resort, New Hampshire: a WPA hill, county-owned since 1959

The first chairlift in the East was installed at Gunstock in early 1938, only a year after the first two in the nation were installed at Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1936, per Gunstock's own history page. In keeping with the resort's name, most of Gunstock's trails are named for guns or gun parts -- Pistol, Musket, Flintlock, Ramrod, Trigger -- per Wikipedia's "Gunstock Mountain Resort" article. The Gunstock Area Commission (GAC) is a five-member board that governs Gunstock Mountain Resort under enabling legislation, New Hampshire Laws of 1959, Chapter 399; commissioners are appointed by the Belknap County Delegation, per Gunstock's own community page. That Delegation is made up of the county's 18 state representatives, who appropriate money to county operations and also appoint the Commission, according to the New Hampshire Bulletin, which on August 10, 2022 described Gunstock as "the county-owned Gunstock Mountain Resort."

General manager Tom Day submitted his resignation on the night of Wednesday, July 20, 2022, per WMUR, and the resort's Adventure Park was reported closed "until further notice" as of Thursday, July 21, 2022, following the resignation of the management team, per CBS News Boston. In a letter dated July 21, 2022, Governor Chris Sununu wrote that state representatives Mike Sylvia, Norm Silber, and Gregg Hough, "along with the remaining members of the Gunstock Area Commission[,] have lost the trust of the citizens of Belknap County," calling for their removal, per the New Hampshire Bulletin. At a July 26, 2022 commission meeting, Commissioners Jade Wood and Doug Lambert, joined by roughly 250 members of the public, called for the resignations of fellow commissioners David Strang and Peter Ness; Wood told them, "Look out at that mountain that's not currently operational -- that's because of you." The New Hampshire Bulletin reported that Gunstock's reopening "hinged on the resignations of two Gunstock Area Commission members: David Strang and Peter Ness." In early August 2022, the Belknap County Delegation accepted commissioner David Strang's resignation, after which general manager Tom Day returned to work. As of the New Hampshire Bulletin's August 10, 2022 report, Gunstock had undergone "a 13-day closure this summer" before the issues that shuttered the resort "were resolved last week," with Adventure Park ziplines reopening and the resort expected to run its ski mountain "as usual" come winter.

The outdoor concert venue in Gilford now known as BankNH Pavilion opened on August 16, 1996 under the name "Meadowbrook Farm," per Wikipedia; it was rebranded "BankNH Pavilion" in 2023, following a series of earlier name changes including "Meadowbrook Musical Arts Center" and "Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion." Ellacoya State Park, on the southwest shore of Lake Winnipesaukee in Gilford, was officially established in 1956 and opened to the public in 1958, per Wikipedia's "Ellacoya State Park" article, and is managed by the New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation. Patrick's Pub & Eatery, at 18 Weirs Road in Gilford, opened in 1987, named by founder Walter Kelleher after his father from Macroom, County Cork, Ireland, per the pub's own "Our Story" page; in 1994, brothers Jeff and Allan Beetle purchased it from Kelleher.