White Mountain Chronicles: Recalling North Conway's old days as told by the late Chubby Whitaker

Editor's note: The Mountain Ear was founded and Steve Eastman in May 1976. The award-winning news weekly and lifestyle journal of Mount Washington Valley was sold by Eastman to Salmon Press in March 2005. Its last issue was in December 2014. Eastman — who died at age 58 from a brain tumor in April 2008 — always wanted to publish an annual book, hoping to call it "White Mountain Chronicles." In collaboration with Eastman's wife, Sarah W. Eastman, brother Tom Eastman (who worked at The Ear from 1979 before coming to The Sun in 2007) and former staff writer Karen Cummings, The Conway Daily Sun on occasional Saturdays is publishing some of those stories relating to local history. This story originally appeared in the Feb 18, 1977, edition of The Mountain Ear. It profiled Charles "Chubby" Whitaker (1895-1977), whose family once owned Whitaker Woods in North Conway.

CONWAY — He remembers before they plowed the roads in Conway, when he'd pick up the 6:20 a.m. train from the A Street station en route to school at Fryeburg Academy, when he could walk down Main Street and knew everyone he met.