Gilford, NH

Gilford began in the late 1770s as the Gunstock Parish, the upper parish of Gilmanton, settled by farmers who were tired of the long trek to Gilmanton town meetings. It became its own town on June 16, 1812. Local tradition holds that a Revolutionary War veteran named Mason, who had fought at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in North Carolina, suggested naming the town for the battle; a clerk's spelling slip in the incorporation papers turned "Guilford" into "Gilford," and it stuck.

Gilford has a surprising claim in lake history: the first steamboat on Winnipesaukee was built here. The 96-foot Belknap, powered by a secondhand sawmill engine, launched from Lake Village in 1833 and chugged around the lake at about six miles an hour. Lake Village (now Lakeport) later left for Laconia, in 1893, along with a strip annexed in 1874, which is why Gilford's old industrial waterfront belongs to the city today.

The town's modern identity was built in the Depression. In 1935 Belknap County proposed a mountain recreation area as a New Deal project, and the WPA poured roughly $600,000 of federal money into building it. It opened in February 1937 with a ski jumping event on a 60-meter jump modeled on Lake Placid's Olympic jump. That county-owned ski area is now Gunstock Mountain Resort, still owned by Belknap County, still the region's winter heart.

Gilford also hosted the first Laconia motorcycle national championship in 1938, a 200-mile race at the Belknap recreation area, and today balances lakefront neighborhoods, Ellacoya State Park's 600-foot beach, and one of New Hampshire's top school systems.