Young, old celebrate 80 years of fun at Clark's Trading Post

At the 80th anniversary celebration of Clark's Trading Post Saturday night, Echo took a spin on a bear-ly adapted Segway. (LORNA COLQUHOUN)

LINCOLN – Hundreds of people turned out this weekend for the anniversary celebration of a venerable White Mountains tourist attraction that first began entertaining visitors when Calvin Coolidge was president.

Clark's Trading Post marked its 80th anniversary with a party Saturday night that drew youngsters who got to watch their first-ever bear show, grandparents who remember visits when they were toddlers, and Marcia Cousineau, in the front row at the performing ring.

"I worked in the gift shop when I was 17 and 18 years old," said Cousineau, of North Woodstock. "That was back in 1937, '38. It was a good job."

As the Clarks' anniversary approached, Cousineau's daughter, Eileen Carter, searched for a newspaper clipping going back some 70 years, featuring her mother, in her late teens, draped with thousands of dollars of pelts.

Back then, the tourist attraction was called Ed Clark's Eskimo Sled Dog Ranch.

"It was for a story the Boston Post did on a Labrador fur trader" who did business with the Clarks, Carter said.

Read this story in today's Union Leader. Pick up a copy on any newsstand. Or see our electronic edition, a page-by-page replica of the print edition.

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