Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
'Old Man of The Mountain' gone!!
 Sun May 04, 2003 1:21 am
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Old man of the Mountain "vanishes".
Sat May 3, 2003 05:42 PM ET
FRANCONIA, N.H. (Reuters) - "The Old Man of the Mountain," a stern and soaring stone face that was New Hampshire's most recognizable symbol, has collapsed into a massive pile of rubble.
"The renowned Old Man of the Mountain fell off the mountain," Richard Henson, a dispatcher at the Grafton County Sheriff's Department, said on Saturday.
The 40-foot-high profile, formed of five granite ledges in New Hampshire's White Mountains in a process that started some 200 million years ago, was reported missing by a trail crew working near the town of Franconia on Saturday morning.
Amy Cyrs was a member of the crew. She said she had been working on the trail and looked up, and stopped in her tracks when she saw the face had vanished.
"It's a strange and unreal feeling that something that has been there all your life is gone," she said.
Police had not determined a cause, but said natural forces most likely pulled the face down. They did not know exactly when it had fallen from its mountainside perch 1,200 feet up on Cannon Mountain.
The "Old Man" adorns the New Hampshire emblem, its quarter coin and countless signs, souvenirs and visitor brochures, helping attract millions of people per year to an area popular with hikers and skiers.
New Hampshire is known as "The Granite State" and many residents of the northern state felt that the face embodied its motto: "Live Free or Die."
The early 19th-century statesman Daniel Webster once wrote of the giant stone profile: "...in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."
Nathaniel Hawthorne immortalized it in a story, "The Great Stone Face," read by generations of U.S. schoolchildren.
Workers had labored for decades to protect the face from harsh New England winter freezes and thaws.
On Saturday, all that was left on the mountainside were cables that had been used to shore it up. Observers said it looked as though the ledges that made up the image had just broken away, leaving a giant mountainside scar.
New Hampshire mourned the natural monument.
"This is a symbol of our state. It's a sad feeling of emptiness," said Richard McLeod, director of state parks.
New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson toured the scene and said he wanted to recreate the image. "I am immediately forming a task force to examine the possibility of resurrecting our state symbol." |
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