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Manchester, New Hampshire Vacations, Experiential Tours and Historical Manchester Travel Packages

 
Manchester City Photo

Manchester is truly a destination spot for any visitor and also provides easy access to all of New Hampshire’s scenic locations. A one-hour car ride north takes you to our scenic White Mountains, travel east to the beautiful coastline, or head west and journey through some of the most picturesque towns and villages.

Manchester is the largest city in the state of New Hampshire and the largest city of northern New England, an area composed of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It is in Hillsborough County on the banks of the Merrimack River. Manchester has a total population 108,580. Manchester is the center of the Manchester, NH, New England City and Town Metropolitan Area (NECTA MA), with a population in 2000 of 176,663.

Manchester is truly a destination spot with a variety of historic attractions, a calendar filled with live shows, an array of sporting events and some of the area's best restaurants.

Manchester History

The city is known for the historic Amoskeag Millyard, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The internationally renowned Currier Museum of Art is located in downtown Manchester and features European and American paintings by Picasso, Monet, O'Keeffe, and many other artists. And some of the biggest names in entertainment can be seen at the new 10,000 Seat Verizon Wireless Arena.
 
Mills on Merrimack River and the West Side of ManchesterPennacook Indians called the area Amoskeag, meaning "good fishing place" -- a reference to the Amoskeag Falls in the Merrimack River. In 1722, John Goffe settled on land beside Cohas Brook, where several years later he built a dam and sawmill. The community was called Old Harry's Town. In 1735, the Province of Massachusetts Bay granted it as Tyngstown to settlers from Massachusetts. A decade following the separation of New Hampshire from Massachusetts, Governor Benning Wentworth in 1751 chartered the town as Derryfield.

In 1807, Samuel Blodget opened a canal and lock system to allow vessels passage around the falls. He envisioned here a great industrial center, "the Manchester of America," like the Industrial Revolution's Manchester in England, the first industrialized city in the world. Sure enough, in 1809, Benjamin Prichard and others built a cotton spinning mill operated by water power on the western bank of the Merrimack. Following Blodgett's suggestion, Derryfield was renamed Manchester in 1810, the year the mill was incorporated as the Amoskeag Cotton & Woolen Manufacturing Company. It would be purchased in 1825 by entrepreneurs from Massachusetts, expanded to 3 mills in 1826, and then incorporated in 1831 as the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company.
 
Elm Street c. 1905On the eastern bank, Amoskeag engineers and architects planned a model company town, founded in 1838 with Elm Street as its main thoroughfare. Incorporated as a city in 1846, Manchester would become home to the largest cotton mill in the world -- Mill No. 11, stretching 900 feet (270 m) long by 103 feet (31 m) wide, and containing 4000 looms. Other products made in the community included shoes, cigars and paper. The Amoskeag foundry made rifles, sewing machines, textile machinery, fire engines, and locomotives in a division called the Amoskeag Locomotive Works (later, the Manchester Locomotive Works). The rapid growth of the mills demanded a large influx of workers, resulting in a flood of immigrants, particularly French Canadians. Many current residents descend from these workers. The Amoskeag Manufacturing Company went out of business in 1935, although its red brick mills have been renovated for other uses. Indeed, the mill town's 19th century affluence left behind some of the finest Victorian commercial, municipal and residential architecture in the state.

Manchester is nicknamed the Queen City. More recent nicknames for the city are ManchVegas, Funchester, ManchHattan, and simply "Manch". In 1998, Manchester was named the "Number One Small City in the East" by Money magazine. The Mall of New Hampshire, on Manchester's southern fringe, is the city's main retail center.

www.manchestercvb.com
www.wikipedia.com

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