LISBON AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM
This 22"x4" steel sign was on the door of Carl W. Carleton's furniture store and undertaking business, which was in the Carleton Block, now the only large wood block standing on the west side of North Main Street. Carl Carleton (1883-1962) began his undertaking business in Lisbon in 1903 and continued until his death resulting from a heart attack.
Everybody's All Smiles! was the motto printed on this Lisbon Savings Bank & Trust Company money bag from the 1950s, which brings back memories of when Lisbon had a hometown bank. The Bank was incorporated in 1889 and first housed in the Hutchins Block which once stood on the site of today's park and gazebo. It moved into the YMCA (Bank Block) which burned in the fire of November 3, 1901. It was rebuilt on the site in 1902. Over the years there were many successors, Lisbon National Bank, Indian Head Bank, Lafayette National Bank, Woodsville Guaranty Savings Bank, and now Bar Harbor Bank.
Part of our recent Back to School Series of schoolhouses in Lisbon, Lyman, and Landaff which we posted on Facebook and was a BIG hit, was this c. 1912 picture of the Lisbon Public School student body on the lawn of the 1891 school which shows the 1911 addition on the back of the building. There were two separate doors at the front of the building, one for boys and one for girls. Boys occupied the west side of the building, and girls occupied the east side of the building. In 1912 there were 10 teachers and 300 pupils, and the school was valued at $50,000. The old wood building was torn down in 1992. It was a fire hazard, and it was not accessible. A new high school/middle school with gymnasium and library at a cost of 3.9 million was built that connected to the brick 1960 elementary wing. The original bell tower was salvaged and stands across the road from the school. The final addition to the school was put on in 2005 and consisted of two additional rooms and renovation of two other rooms for kindergarten.
It looks big, but this promotional pen knife in a mother-of-pearl-type case from Jesseman's Garage is only 3 inches long. Eli Swinyer and Harlan Jesseman purchased Leslie Jesseman’s blacksmith shop on North Main Street in 1926 and enlarged the building to go into the automobile garage business. In 1930 Jesseman’s became a Chevrolet dealership. In 1955 Harlan’s son Roland took over the business and sold it to Lisbon Chevrolet in 1996. The buildings were torn down in 2008, and now there is a parking lot on the site.
This c. 1930 flyer advertised scenic airplane trips out of Cobleigh Airport in Lisbon.
Lisbon’s Cobleigh Airport was located in a field between the old Young-Cobleigh Tavern and Henry Pond along Route 302 just outside Lisbon Village. The airfield was on land owned by the Hanno family, who at the time owned the old tavern and surrounding fields. The airfield was first licensed by state and federal government in 1925. In 1922, a 45-year-old Littleton physician and surgeon, Dr. Arthur Downing, was the first person to land a plane on the airfield. Long flights to Littleton, Woodsville, Sugar Hill and “Barnet Dam” were $5. (The "Barnet Dam Site" was Comerford Dam on the Connecticut River between Monroe, NH and Barnet, VT, which was built from 1928-1931 on Fifteen Mile Falls.) Local flights over Lisbon and vicinity were $3.
In September of 1931, five hundred soldiers from the 5th Infantry Regiment of the U. S. Army pitched tents on the airfield on their way back to Fort Williams in Maine from Fort Ethan Allen in Vermont. The regiment’s band of 50 musicians gave a concert in Lisbon Square to thousands of spectators. By the spring of 1933, the airport was also used as a home field for the Lisbon Tigers, a new town baseball team. A boys’ 4-H competition was also held there, and a traveling circus under a big top along with a midway set up with rides used the field one summer. In October of 1933, a weekend-long air circus was put on by the New England Air Circus Association. It was reported that over 2,000 people were in attendance and 500 cars lined the main road. The era of the Cobleigh Airport ended in 1940.
In July of 1941, Lisbon opened its new $4,000 concrete swimming pool on the Lisbon Lions Community Field, (pictured in the early 1970s with the bathhouse). The pool was a joint project between the Lisbon Lions Club and Lisbon Outing Club, which raised $1,200 towards the expense of construction. The balance of the cost was raised through private funding. The new chlorinated pool was 30'x60' and five feet deep at the deep end. Water from Pearl Lake was used to fill the pool and kept a constant flow through it. The pool was drained once a week or more as needed. Each spring volunteers put a fresh coat of bright blue paint on the concrete to get it ready for another year of swimming. The pool was replaced in 2012 by a new $415,000, 80'x50' community swimming pool and bathhouse which opened in July of 2012. The project was funded through years of Lisbon Pool Fund and Lisbon Lions Club fundraising events, a Lisbon, Lyman, and Landaff apportionment, private and business donations, memorial donations, and a NHCDFA Tax Credit Grant.