Clarks Trading Post

Clark's Trading Post — renamed Clark's Bears in 2019 — traces to 1928, when the property opened along U.S. Route 3 in Lincoln, New Hampshire as a roadside stand called Ed Clark's Eskimo Sled Dog Ranch, selling souvenirs while visitors viewed Florence and Ed Clark's Labrador sled dogs. The family bought its first black bear in 1931 to draw tourists, and sons Edward and Murray began training bears in 1949, creating the bear show the attraction is still known for. In the 1950s the Clark brothers started salvaging old steam locomotives for display, which led them to build the White Mountain Central Railroad, a purpose-built tourist railroad laid to standard gauge; construction began in 1955 and the first train ran on July 30, 1958. The line's signature structure is a 1904 Howe truss covered bridge that once carried Montpelier and Barre Railroad trains over the Winooski River in East Montpelier, Vermont — the brothers bought it, dismantled it in 1964, then moved and reassembled it across the Pemigewasset River. A covered-bridge listing maintained by the State of New Hampshire notes it appears to be the only Howe railroad bridge left in the world.