| Nashua
Telegraph- 11-15-1949 |
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| Nashua,
New Hampshire |
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180 S. Daniel Webster Hwy. |
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The
following commentary is provided by Nate Coggeshall-Beyea
who has extensively studied and documented the history
and development of Howard Johnson's in New Hampshire:
One
of the earliest Howard Johnson’s restaurants
to arrive in New Hampshire was Nashua. Built along
South Main Street and the Daniel Webster Highway
(U.S. Route 3), New Hampshire’s emerging central
gateway, Nashua was clearly representative of HJ’s
initial fore lay into the full-service roadside
restaurant business.
The
location HJ chose for this store was prime. Within
a few miles of the Massachusetts and New Hampshire
border, and positioned prominently along the main
thoroughfare, the Nashua franchise was certainly
guaranteed an excellent traffic flow from both in-town
and out-of-town motorists. As the main road from
Boston up through New Hampshire, Route 3 was a goldmine
for roadside businesses and establishments. HJ clearly
capitalized on this opportunity, drawing in travelers
for some much-needed nourishment.
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The
Nashua store was opened in the mid-1930s, not long after HJ introduced
the concept of franchising to his fledgling roadside empire. It
was constructed as a Bourne type Neocolonial One, with a small dining
section on the right-hand side. Other features included a Portsmouth
type cupola, three Bourne type dormers, traditional front-facing
windows and siding, a flat entrance, and a Bourne type sign. The
first several years were very successful for the store. As the business
prospered, the small dining room section proved inadequate and was
replaced in the 1940s by an enlarged dining room addition, nearly
doubling the restaurant’s capacity and floor space. It was
one of the largest dining room expansions ever made to any Neocolonial
One or Two restaurant.
In
1967, the Nashua store was joined by another HJ property in Nashua,
a ground-breaking Concept 65 restaurant and motor lodge combination,
out on the Everett Turnpike (new Route 3). However, the original
restaurant location was never supplanted by the newer complex and
continued to operate as a Howard Johnson’s well into the 1980s.
Following the departure of HJ, the building was home to the Lovering
Volvo
dealership in its later years. This dealership enjoyed a steady
growth of business throughout the 1990s, and soon, the need for
a new building became very evident to the owners. As a result, in
2000, the HJ structure was completely razed and replaced with a
modern facility, thus ending the legacy for one of HJ’s first
entrances into the New Hampshire roadside market.
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