Jefferson Highlands, 1883 John Ross Key Oil on canvas, 44 x 20 inches Private collection


and other soft woods with various chemicals, generally sulphide or sul- phate, to produce cheap paper. The White Mountain landscape changed as loggers cut even small spruce on the higher slopes of the mountains. They were able to do so relatively easily because small logging railroads moved into the more remote valleys and opened them to cutting. While there were responsible logging operations, there were many that were not. The most infamous example is J.E. Henry. In the 1880s and 1890s, Henry controlled and devastated a 10,000-acre tract in the Zealand Valley. In many places including Zealand, fires followed, scarring the land.


White Mountain artists did not depict the devastation left in the wake of large-scale logging operations. Artists catered to the tourists. The


tourists bought as souvenirs paintings that depicted the best of their vacation experiences. Painters often excised what they did not want in a scene, such as a hotel or a clear-cut hill, or added elements that they did want to highlight, such as another mountain slope or a nostalgic take on a stagecoach. Individual artists painted the same scene mul- tiple times—if it sold.


The paintings after mid-century seldom represented the rugged coun- try seen by the early tourists. The landscape had been tamed. After the Civil War, artists focused less on nature and more on people, light, and atmosphere. They depicted the landscape as a calm countryside, dotted with the occasional cow or sheep; they outlined small towns


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