Then and Now: Local boy makes (very) good

The house shown here is only one of many buildings in North Conway associated with Harvey Dow Gibson. More than any other single person, he made his mark on the village of his birth, where community leaders had always wanted to promote tourism. Thanks largely to Harvey, they got their wish good and hard.

He grew up in the big Victorian house on Main Street, almost directly opposite the end of Kearsarge Street. His father sent him to Fryeburg Academy, and he graduated from Bowdoin in 1902, going to work for the American Express Company. He stayed there for a decade, and in 1913 was named a vice president at Liberty National Bank. In 1917, just before his 35th birthday, he was chosen president of that bank, but he soon took leave to serve as general manager of the American Red Cross in France during World War I. Coming home as “Colonel” Gibson, he became president of New York Trust in 1921, when that bank and Liberty National merged.