Berlin, New Hampshire

Berlin, New Hampshire
City
Seal
Nickname(s): The City That Trees Built Paper City Hockey Town USA
Location in New Hampshire
Coordinates: 44°28′07″N 71°11′02″W / 44.46861°N 71.18389°W / 44.46861; -71.18389Coordinates: 44°28′07″N 71°11′02″W / 44.46861°N 71.18389°W / 44.46861; -71.18389
Country	United States
State	New Hampshire
County	Coos
Town	1829
City	1897
Government
• Mayor	Paul Grenier
• City Council	Russell Otis Lucie Remillard Michael Gentili Denise Morgan Allain Peter Higbee Michael Rozek Roland Theberge Diana Nelson
• City Manager	James Wheeler
Area
• Total	62.5 sq mi (162 km2)
• Land	61.6 sq mi (160 km2)
• Water	0.9 sq mi (2 km2)
Elevation	1,020 ft (310 m)
Population (2010)
• Total	10,051
• Estimate (2012[1])	9,743
• Density	160/sq mi (62/km2)
Time zone	EST (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP code	03570
Area code(s)	603
FIPS code	33-05140
GNIS feature ID	0871491
Website	www.berlinnh.gov

Berlin /ˈbɜːrlᵻn/ is a city along the Androscoggin River in Coos County in northern New Hampshire, United States. The population was 10,051 at the 2010 census.^[2] It includes the village of Cascade. Located on the edge of the White Mountains, the city's boundaries extend into the White Mountain National Forest. Berlin is home to the Moffett House, Service Credit Union Heritage Park, the Berlin Fish Hatchery, and the White Mountains Community College, member of the Community College System of New Hampshire.

Berlin is the principal city of the Berlin Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Coos County, New Hampshire and Essex County, Vermont. Because Quebec is less than 60 miles (100 km) away, Berlin has a large number of people of French Canadian descent in its population. Around 65% of its residents speak a variant of New England French, which is locally known as “Berlin French”.

History

International Paper Mill, c. 1912

Green's Pond, 1888

A letter from Mayor Arthur Scholtz of Berlin, Germany honoring the “Paper City” on its 100th anniversary on July 5, 1929

Around 11,000 years ago, small groups of Native Americans camped around the area of what is now called Berlin. In later years, the Eastern Abenaki tribes came to Berlin to mine rhyolite on Mt. Jasper.

When English colonists came to America, Berlin was first granted on December 31, 1771 by Colonial Governor John Wentworth, as Maynesborough after Sir William Mayne.^[3] But the grantees did not take up their claims, which disappeared with the Revolution. In 1802, Seth Eames and Gideon Tirrell were sent by the descendants of Mayne to explore and mark lots for settlers, and still no one came. Maynesborough was settled in 1823-1824 by William Sessions and his nephew, Cyrus Wheeler.^[4] Both men were from Gilead, Maine. Farming was the first industry. With 65 inhabitants in 1829, the New England town was reincorporated on July 1 as Berlin with the help of Cyrus' father, Thomas Wheeler.^[5]

Situated in a heavily forested region, the community developed early into a center for logging and wood industries. Falls on the Androscoggin River provided water power for sawmills. In 1826, a road was built to Gorham by Thomas, Amos, and Daniel Green. In 1851 the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad entered Berlin, connecting it to other markets. Acquiring water, timber, and rail rights in the early 1850s, the H. Winslow & Company built a large sawmill at the head of "Berlin Falls". In 1868, William Wentworth Brown and Lewis T. Brown bought a controlling interest in the business and changed its name to the Berlin Mills Company. In 1866, a schoolteacher named Elmire Jolicoeur invented the dish now known as a "Casserole" and served it to students and travelers.

By 1885, the mill town was home to several pulp and paper mills, including the Riverside Mill, Forest Fibre Company and White Mountain Pulp & Paper Company. Because of the need for labor in the mills, immigrants arrived from Russia, Norway, Finland, Italy, Sweden, Ireland, and Germany. Many others were French Canadians from nearby Quebec.

In 1872, a group of Scandinavians founded the nation's oldest ski club, which still exists today.^[6] It was originally called the North American Ski Club (in Norwegian, Nordamerikansk Skiklubben), but later was renamed the Nansen Ski Club. This was in honor of Fridtjof Nansen, who in 1888 skied across Greenland. In 1897, Berlin was incorporated as a city, the northernmost in the state.

As of 1874, the Grand Trunk Railroad passed through the eastern portion of the town.^[3]

Berlin's main industry in the early 20th century was the pulp and paper industries, which have been in a long decline since that time. As jobs left the area, the population has decreased and is about half its peak of more than 20,000 in the 1930 census. In 1917, the Berlin Mills Company was renamed the Brown Company, because of World War I and anti-German feeling against the enemy of the time. A short time after the Great Depression, the Brown Company went into receivership. Surviving with governmental help, it was bought and sold several times after World War II.

In 2001 American Tissue filed for bankruptcy, before which it had stopped paying city taxes. Its facilities were purchased in 2002 by Fraser Papers of Canada. But in March 2006, Fraser Papers announced the closing of Berlin's pulp mill. On May 6, 2006, 250 employees were displaced, some moving to Cascade's paper finishing mill, but most were left unemployed.^[7]

On October 3, 2006, the North American Dismantling Corporation of Michigan announced that it had bought the 121-acre (49 ha) defunct pulp mill site of Fraser Paper, and would spend a year demolishing the property to allow redevelopment.^[8] Laidlaw Energy LLC has since purchased a portion of the former Fraser property, including a large recovery boiler which it intends to convert into a 66-megawatt biomass plant in 2010-2011.^[9]

In the 1990s, the local historian and author Paul “Poof” Tardiff began writing articles in The Berlin Daily Sun. He later collected these in a three-volume series titled Once Upon a Berlin Time, which documents local history.^[10]

Recent economic development has been based on the correctional industry. The 750-bed Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility was built in 1999 and employs approximately 200 people. In 2012, the Federal Bureau of Prisons opened a federal, 1200-bed medium security facility, which employs approximately 350 people.

• 

  Main Street c. 1912

• 

  Mount Forest c. 1912

• 

  Main Street in 1914

• 

  Post Office Square c. 1914

• 

  City Hall in 1916

• 

  Berlin Falls daguerreotype, c. 1845

• 

  Gem Theatre in 1917

• 

  General View c. 1920

• 

  General View c. 2007

• 

  Main Street South in 2007

• 

  Grand Trunk Railroad Station 2007

• 

  Berlin waterfront, 2007

• 

  A group of Russian immigrants at the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in 1915

• 

  Berlin, c. 1905

• 

  City panorama from Mt. Forest, 1970

Geography

Berlin is located at 44°28′07″N 71°11′02″W / 44.46861°N 71.18389°W / 44.46861; -71.18389 (44.4686, -71.1839).^[11]

Berlin is located in northern New Hampshire, north of the White Mountains. The city is bordered to the south by Randolph and Gorham, north by Milan, east by Success and west by Kilkenny. New Hampshire Route 16 passes through the center of the city, leading north to Errol and to Maine, and leading south through Gorham and Pinkham Notch to North Conway and the Seacoast Region of New Hampshire. New Hampshire Route 110 leads northwest out of Berlin through West Milan to Groveton.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 62.5 square miles (162 km²), of which 61.6 square miles (160 km²) is land and 0.9 square miles (2.3 km²) is water, comprising 1.35% of the town.^[12] Berlin is situated at the confluence of the Androscoggin and Dead rivers. The Mahoosuc Range is to the southeast. Jericho Mountain State Park, created from a city park and from private land in 2005, is west of the city center and features a reservoir created in the 1970s and a network of ATV trails. The city's highest point is Mount Weeks, at 3,901 feet (1,189 m) above sea level. Approximately half of Berlin lies within the Connecticut River watershed, and half lies in the Androscoggin River watershed.^[13]

Rivers

• Androscoggin River
• Dead River (New Hampshire)
• Upper Ammonoosuc River

Climate

Like all of New England except the highest mountains, Berlin has a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) characterised by cold, snowy winters and warm summers. Warm southerly or easterly airflows from an anticyclone in the Atlantic occasionally moderate the winters: on December 7, 2001 Berlin reached as warm as 68 °F or 20 °C. Blocks to the west, however, may drive very cold air from eastern Canada and the shallow, frozen Hudson Bay, providing extremely cold winters as occurred in 1917/1918, 1922/1923 and 1933/1934; the coldest temperature recorded in Berlin is −44 °F (−42.2 °C) on December 30 and 31 of 1917. It can be expected that each year 68.0 afternoons will not top freezing, that 34.4 mornings will fall to or below 0 °F or −17.8 °C, and that 180.5 mornings will fall to or below freezing point. The average window for days not topping freezing is November 14 to March 29, and for subzero lows from December 11 to March 12. Snowfall is typically heavy at 79.7 inches or 2.02 metres, with the historical range being from 127 inches (3.23 m) between July 1995 and June 1996 to 34.2 inches (0.87 m) between July 1979 and June 1980.

Summer weather is generally moderate, though rain depressions moving from the tropics or strong frontal storms often produce heavy rainfall: the record daily rainfall is 6.50 inches (165.1 mm) on September 17, 1999, beating the previous record of 5.15 inches (130.8 mm) on the same day in 1932. The wettest month has however been September 1954 with 12.21 inches (310.1 mm) and the driest January 1981 with 0.14 inches (3.6 mm) actually consisting of 3.1 inches (0.08 m) of snow. Calendar year precipitation has ranged from a low of 29.47 inches (748.5 mm) in 2001 to 58.00 inches (1,473.2 mm) in 1954. Occasionally an offshore flow from the interior United States will produce very hot weather during the summer: the record high is 98 °F (36.7 °C) on four occasions: three consecutive days from June 3 to June 5 in 1919 and on July 5, 1983.

Demographics

As of the census^[18] of 2010, there were 10,051 people residing in the city. The population density was 160.8 people per square mile (62.1/km²). There were 4,910 housing units at an average density of 78.6 per square mile (30.3/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 96.54% White, 0.81% African American, 0.39% Native American, 0.28% Asian, 0% Pacific Islander, 0.22% from other races, and 1.77% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.51% of the population.

The population of Berlin rose rapidly from 1880 through 1930. The fastest growth more than doubled the population between 1890 and 1900. A slow decline began after 1930, interrupted only by a temporary increase around 1960.

Notable people

• Gaston Allaire, music educator and composer in Canada
• William Robinson Brown, a corporate officer of the Brown Company and a noted horse breeder
• Robert N. Chamberlain, American lawyer twice elected to the legislature
• Lew Cody, American actor during the 1920s and 30s
• Michael Durant, US Army Night Stalkers pilot, shot down and held prisoner after the Battle of Mogadishu^[20]
• George Hawkins, the victim of a bad skin graft that led to the celebrated "Hairy Hand" case of Hawkins v. McGee
• Dennis "Red" Gendron, head coach of the University of Maine Black Bear men's ice hockey team, former New Jersey Devils and Yale Bulldogs coach
• James H. Horne, athletic director and coach at Indiana University
• Elizabeth Raum, Canadian oboist and composer
• Joseph Royer, operatic baritone
• Earl Silas Tupper , inventor of Tupperware
• Bob Whitcher, pitcher with the Boston Braves

Education

Public schools

Public education is managed by Berlin Public Schools:

• Berlin High School (Grades 9 through 12)
• Berlin Middle School (Grades 6 through 8)
• Hillside Elementary School (Grades 3 through 5)
• Brown Elementary School (Grades K through 2)

Higher education

• White Mountains Community College (member of the Community College System of New Hampshire)
• Granite State College

Transportation

The major roads serving Berlin are New Hampshire Routes 16 and 110. Berlin serves as the northern terminus of the Berlin–Conway–New Hampton route of Concord Coach Lines.

Two airports are located nearby to Berlin, Berlin Regional Airport and Gorham Airport.

Media

Radio stations

• WMOU 1230 AM: Hot Adult Contemporary (simulcast on 106.1 F.M..)

Documentaries

• At the River's Edge, an award-winning oral history of Berlin

Movies

The following movies have been filmed in Berlin:

• The Masked Menace, filmed in 1927

Newspaper

• The Berlin Daily Sun
• The Berlin Reporter

Popular culture

• Many scenes in the 1927 silent film The Masked Menace were shot in Berlin.
• The main character in Thomas Williams' book The Hair of Harold Roux was born in Berlin.
• In the novel Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving, most of the characters are supposed to be employed by paper mills based in Berlin.
• In Stephen King's novel The Shining, the character Jack Torrance grew up in Berlin and often describes his childhood there.
• In Julian May's Galactic Milieu Series, the narrator Uncle Rogi grows up in Berlin. Many of the pivotal events in the series are set near Berlin, on Mount Washington.

Inventions

Hiram A. Farrand with the Farrand Rapid Rule

The following items were created in Berlin:

• Bermico, a type of pipe that were produced by the Brown Company in the 1920s-1970s^[21]
• The casserole, a dish invented in 1866^[22]
• Cellulose floc, developed by the Brown Company^[23]
• Farrand Rapid Rule, created by Hiram A. Farrand Inc. but later sold to Stanley Works^[24]
• Iron rigging, an object for skis made by Olaf Oleson and later sold to the Northland Ski Company of Minnesota^[25]
• Kream Krisp, a substance like Crisco created by the Brown Company, which led to lawsuit known as “Procter and Gamble vs. the Brown Company”^[26]
• Nibroc Paper Towels, developed by William E. Corbin and mass-produced by the Brown Company^[27]

Historic sites

Berlin is home to the following sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places:

• Congregational Church, added in 1980
• Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, added in 1979
• Mt. Jasper Lithic Source, added in 1992
• St. Anne Church, added in 1979

Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, added in 1979 to the NRHP

Sites of interest

• The former Nansen Ski Jump
• The Berlin & Coos County Historical Society (BCCHS) Moffett House Museum
• Moffett House Museum
• Northern Forest Heritage Park
• Jericho Mountain State Park

See also

• Mill town
• Paper mill
• Pulp and paper industry

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Berlin, New Hampshire.

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Berlin, New Hampshire.

• City of Berlin official website
• BerlinNH.net, community informational website and blog
• New Hampshire Economic & Labor Market Information Bureau Profile
• Video - NADC Purchases Pulp Mill in Berlin, New Hampshire
• Beyond Brown Paper, the photo archives of the Brown Company covering 1885 through 1965

Municipalities and communities of Coös County, New Hampshire, United States
County seat: Lancaster
City	Berlin
Towns	Carroll Clarksville Colebrook Columbia Dalton Dummer Errol Gorham Jefferson Lancaster Milan Northumberland Pittsburg Randolph Shelburne Stark Stewartstown Stratford Whitefield
Townships	Atkinson and Gilmanton Academy Grant Bean's Grant Bean's Purchase Cambridge Chandler's Purchase Crawford's Purchase Cutt's Grant Dix's Grant Dixville Erving's Location Green's Grant Hadley's Purchase Kilkenny Low and Burbank's Grant Martin's Location Millsfield Odell Pinkham's Grant Sargent's Purchase Second College Grant Success Thompson and Meserve's Purchase Wentworth's Location
CDPs	Colebrook Gorham Groveton Lancaster West Stewartstown Whitefield
Other villages	Bretton Woods Cascade Dixville Notch North Stratford Tinkerville Twin Mountain

State of New Hampshire
Concord (capital)
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Counties	Belknap Carroll Cheshire Coös Grafton Hillsborough Merrimack Rockingham Strafford Sullivan
Cities	Berlin Claremont Concord Dover Franklin Keene Laconia Lebanon Manchester Nashua Portsmouth Rochester Somersworth
Towns	Acworth Albany Alexandria Allenstown Alstead Alton Amherst Andover Antrim Ashland Atkinson Auburn Barnstead Barrington Bartlett Bath Bedford Belmont Bennington Benton Bethlehem Boscawen Bow Bradford Brentwood Bridgewater Bristol Brookfield Brookline Campton Canaan Candia Canterbury Carroll Center Harbor Charlestown Chatham Chester Chesterfield Chichester Clarksville Colebrook Columbia Conway Cornish Croydon Dalton Danbury Danville Deerfield Deering Derry Dorchester Dublin Dummer Dunbarton Durham East Kingston Easton Eaton Effingham Ellsworth Enfield Epping Epsom Errol Exeter Farmington Fitzwilliam Francestown Franconia Freedom Fremont Gilford Gilmanton Gilsum Goffstown Gorham Goshen Grafton Grantham Greenfield Greenland Greenville Groton Hampstead Hampton Hampton Falls Hancock Hanover Harrisville Hart's Location Haverhill Hebron Henniker Hill Hillsborough Hinsdale Holderness Hollis Hooksett Hopkinton Hudson Jackson Jaffrey Jefferson Kensington Kingston Lancaster Landaff Langdon Lee Lempster Lincoln Lisbon Litchfield Littleton Londonderry Loudon Lyman Lyme Lyndeborough Madbury Madison Marlborough Marlow Mason Meredith Merrimack Middleton Milan Milford Milton Monroe Mont Vernon Moultonborough Nelson New Boston Newbury New Castle New Durham Newfields New Hampton Newington New Ipswich New London Newmarket Newport Newton Northfield North Hampton Northumberland Northwood Nottingham Orange Orford Ossipee Pelham Pembroke Peterborough Piermont Pittsburg Pittsfield Plainfield Plaistow Plymouth Randolph Raymond Richmond Rindge Rollinsford Roxbury Rumney Rye Salem Salisbury Sanbornton Sandown Sandwich Seabrook Sharon Shelburne South Hampton Springfield Stark Stewartstown Stoddard Strafford Stratford Stratham Sugar Hill Sullivan Sunapee Surry Sutton Swanzey Tamworth Temple Thornton Tilton Troy Tuftonboro Unity Wakefield Walpole Warner Warren Washington Waterville Valley Weare Webster Wentworth Westmoreland Whitefield Wilmot Wilton Winchester Windham Windsor Wolfeboro Woodstock
Townships	Atkinson and Gilmanton Academy Grant Bean's Grant Bean's Purchase Cambridge Chandler's Purchase Crawford's Purchase Cutt's Grant Dix's Grant Dixville Erving's Location Green's Grant Hadley's Purchase Hale's Location Kilkenny Livermore Low and Burbank's Grant Martin's Location Millsfield Odell Pinkham's Grant Sargent's Purchase Second College Grant Success Thompson and Meserve's Purchase Wentworth's Location