Bretton Woods, New Hampshire

Being virtually surrounded by the White Mountain National Forest, the vista from Bretton Woods toward Mount Washington and the Presidential Range includes no significant artificial structures other than the Mount Washington Cog Railway and the Mount Washington Hotel.

Bretton Woods, New Hampshire
Unincorporated community
Mount Washington Hotel at the foot of the Presidential Range in September 2010, looking east
Bretton Woods Show map of New Hampshire Bretton Woods Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 44°15′29″N 71°26′28″W / 44.25806°N 71.44111°W / 44.25806; -71.44111
Country	United States
State	New Hampshire
County	Coos
Town	Carroll
Elevation	1,631 ft (497 m)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP code	03575
Area code	603
GNIS feature ID	865781

Bretton Woods was the site of the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in 1944 which has given its name to the Bretton Woods system and led to the establishment of both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in 1945. The Bretton Woods system ended in 1971.

Bretton Woods is located along U.S. Route 302, 5 miles (8 km) east of the village of Twin Mountain and 20 miles (32 km) through scenic Crawford Notch northwest of the town of Bartlett.

In 1772, King George III granted Sir Thomas Wentworth of Bretton Hall, a country house in West Bretton, West Yorkshire, and 82 others, a parcel of 24,640 acres (9,970 ha) of land to be laid out as a plantation in the White Mountains. The plantation became the town of Carroll, and the southeast corner of the land retained the name "Bretton Woods", after the estate.

 

The Mount Washington Hotel and Resort is one in the last surviving handful of New Hampshire grand hotels, and includes two golf courses, alpine and Nordic skiing, a 25,000-square-foot (2,300 m²) spa, sled rides, dog sled rides, tennis, horseback riding and much more in its facilities.

The Bretton Woods Mountain Resort ski area serves both downhill and cross-country skiing, primarily in the Rosebrook Mountains, located in Bethlehem to the south. The downhill resort is the largest in New Hampshire,^{[citation needed]} with 101 trails. In the early twentieth century heyday of northern U.S. resorts for the elite, rail passengers would travel from Boston on the Boston and Maine's Mountaineer. From New York City, passengers took the Connecticut Yankee, Day White Mountains, Night White Mountains, or Overnighter.

The tracks of the Cog Railway and its associated buildings lie up the slope of Mount Washington, in nearby Thompson and Meserve's Purchase. The "Base Road" from Bretton Woods and Fabyan's is the preferred route to the lower end of the tracks (the Base Station of the Cog), except in those winters when the Mount Clinton Road is instead the only plowed road to their intersection. (The closing of the lower end of the Base Road had been traditional into 2004.) The Cog was operated during the winter seasons of 2004 to 2006 to take wilderness skiers partway up the mountain.

• Bretton Woods Conference