I lived in New England for half my life. Never once have I heard of Livermore, NH. I traveled all over it as I was spreading my wings and exploring with my first vehicles and with friends. New Hampshire was a frequent target area. It’s gorgeous for one thing, but it’s accessibly wild. Meaning you can drive right up to a trail head that gets you lost in the wilderness within moments of leaving the roadway. In all my travels there, and that included running through Grafton County on Route 4 off the 93 to head for a concert over in Lebanon or Canaan several times. Then we move to California and where do we settle? Livermore, CA.
I found myself a little stunned when I found reference to another Livermore (I’m sure there are more) this one was in NH. It’ s short history is interesting and I thought worth comparing to our Livermore – where we live today. I hope it piqued your interest also.
Livermore
It makes total sense that Livermore, NH never crossed my radar during my time in New England. Tucked deep in Grafton County near Mt. Carrigain, it was a closed, private “company town” that existed almost entirely off the main path for just a couple of generations before being absorbed into the White Mountain National Forest.
By contrast, Livermore, CA was positioned from day one as an open, connected agricultural and transit hub that kept adapting as the world around it changed.
Here is a side-by-side historical report comparing these two namesake towns and examining why one dissolved into history while the other grew into a major California city.
Tale of Two Livermores: A Comparative Analysis
| Feature | Livermore, New Hampshire | Livermore, California |
| Origin of Name | Samuel Livermore (18th-century NH politician) | Robert Livermore (English seaman turned Mexican ranchero) |
| Incorporated | July 11, 1876 | April 15, 1876 |
| Peak Status | ~200 residents (c. 1900); company logging town | ~88,000 residents; science, technology & wine hub |
| Primary Driver | Single-resource timber extraction | Diversified: Viticulture, transit, military, national research labs |
| Current Status | Dissolved in 1951; uninhabited national forest land | Flourishing municipality in the East Bay Tri-Valley |
Timelines of Development
Livermore, New Hampshire: The Life & Fade of a Timber Town
Logging Roots Established
1874
The Saunders family incorporates the Grafton County Lumber Company to clear-cut spruce and timber along the Sawyer River valley.
Town Incorporation
1876
Livermore is officially incorporated by the NH legislature. The Saunders family constructs a massive steam-powered mill and laying tracks for the Sawyer River Railroad.
The Golden Peak
1880–1900
Population reaches around 200. The town operates its own school, company store, and housing, but every square inch of real estate remains privately owned by the Saunders family.
The Great Flood
1927
A catastrophic November storm destroys the town’s sawmill and washes out miles of crucial logging track. The mill closes permanently in 1928.
Government Acquisition & Dissolution
1937–1951
With the timber exhausted, the Saunders estate sells nearly all town acreage to the U.S. Forest Service. The state officially revokes Livermore’s town charter in 1951.
Livermore, California: Adaptability & Growth
Rancho Las Positas Granted
1839
Robert Livermore settles in the valley and establishes a prosperous cattle and agricultural ranch under Mexican land grant authority.
The Railroad Arrives
1869
William Mendenhall lays out the town site on his land, naming it after his friend Robert Livermore, right as the Western Pacific Railroad builds through the valley.
City Incorporation
1876
Livermore incorporates as an official California city. Shortly after in 1883, Wente and Concannon vineyards are established, launching commercial viticulture.
Military & Atomic Era Shift
1942–1952
The opening of Naval Air Station Livermore during WWII transitions the town into a defense hub. In 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory opens on the site.
Suburban & Tech Expansion
1970s–Present
Connected via I-580 and BART feeders, Livermore evolves into a key anchor of the East Bay, combining historic wine country with high-tech science infrastructure.
What Caused One to Fail and One to Flourish?
1. Single-Resource Dependency vs. Economic Diversification
- NH: Livermore, NH was an extract-and-leave economy. It was built around a single finite resource—timber. When the surrounding mountains were logged out and the mill burned down, there was no secondary industry to keep residents or commerce in the valley.
- CA: Livermore, CA built its early success on geography rather than a single raw material. It started with cattle ranches, shifted smoothly into wheat farming and viticulture, established itself as a shipping hub for regional trade, and later adapted to military and scientific research needs.
2. Land Ownership Models
- NH: It was a rigid “company town.” The Saunders family owned the land, the railroad, the store, and the houses. Residents couldn’t buy property or invest long-term capital to build independent businesses. Once the company pulled out, the town had no private landowners to sustain a civic tax base.
- CA: Founded on private parcel sales by William Mendenhall, Livermore, CA encouraged individual ownership, private enterprise, and homesteading from the start, creating a invested community base that built schools, churches, and civic foundations.
3. Transportation & Geographic Access
- NH: Tucked up in a dead-end mountain valley along the Sawyer River, the town depended entirely on a private logging spur line. When natural disasters washed out the track, reconnecting it wasn’t economically viable.
- CA: Situated in a natural pass connecting the San Francisco Bay Area to the Central Valley, Livermore sat along major transcontinental rail routes and later Interstate 580, making it an indispensable corridor for commuters, freight, and travel.
Also of interest – I’ll always find interest in railroads:
The Sawyer River Railroad (SRRR) was a marvel of late-19th-century mountain logging engineering. Operating from 1876 until the late 1920s, it was designed specifically to solve a brutal geographical problem: how to haul millions of board-feet of heavy virgin timber out of a steep, roadless White Mountain wilderness that traditional horse-drawn sleds could only navigate in deep winter.
Unlike standard commercial railways, the SRRR was built as a private industrial feeder line by Charles Saunders and the Grafton County Lumber Company, serving purely as the logistical backbone for the town of Livermore.
1. Route Layout & Track Engineering
- The Junction Anchor: The railroad began at Sawyer River Station (in Hart’s Location), where it connected directly to the Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad (later part of the Maine Central line through Crawford Notch). This interchange allowed Livermore to ship milled lumber directly to Portland, Boston, and beyond.
- The Main Line: From the interchange, the main line climbed roughly 7 to 8 miles southwest along the rugged Sawyer River valley directly into the heart of Livermore, eventually continuing up toward the base of Mount Carrigain and Mount Hancock.
- Spurs and “Flying” Branches: The engineers laid down temporary spur lines into side valleys and ravines where logging camps were stationed. Once a slope was completely clear-cut, workers pulled up the iron rails and wooden ties and relaying them down the next valley.
- Steep Grades: Standard railroads struggled on grades over 2% to 3%. The Sawyer River line regularly navigated terrain with steep, unforgiving grades exceeding 4% to 6%, requiring specialized braking systems and careful throttle control to prevent runaway trains on the descent.
2. Specialized Motive Power & Rolling Stock
To handle the mountain terrain, the Saunders family invested in locomotives specifically built for logging environments rather than speed:
- Baldwin 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 Tank Engines: Early on, the line relied on compact, heavy Baldwin steam locomotives. These engines carried their water and fuel directly on the engine frame rather than in a separate tender car, putting extra weight over the driving wheels to maximize traction on slippery steel rails.
- The Famous Baldwin “C.W. Saunders”: One of the most recognizable locomotives on the line was a custom-built 2-4-2 wood-burning steam engine named the C.W. Saunders, tailored to haul heavy log flats down from the upper camps to the Livermore sawmill.
- Heavy Log Cars: The rolling stock consisted primarily of heavy-duty, open-frame log flatcars equipped with manual handbrakes and heavy chain tie-downs. Logs were loaded lengthwise, often stacked high above the car frame.
3. Operational Workflow
- 1.Felling & Skidding:Upper Mountain Camps.
Lumberjacks cut virgin spruce, fir, and hardwood on the high slopes during the fall and winter. Horses and steam-powered winches (donkey engines) dragged the logs down skid trails to railside loading yards.
- 2.Loading & Valley Transport:Upper Mountain Spurs.
Workers loaded the massive logs onto flatcars using steam derricks. The locomotive then made the slow, careful descent down the branch lines to the sawmill in central Livermore.
- 3.Milling & Processing:Livermore Sawmill Complex.
At the mill, logs were dumped into the mill pond to wash off gravel before being pulled into the steam-powered sawmill, where they were cut into dimension lumber, clapboards, and shingles.
- 4.Finished Goods Export:Sawyer River Junction.
The finished, dried lumber was reloaded onto cars and hauled down the final section of the Sawyer River Railroad to the Maine Central junction to be shipped to East Coast markets.
- 5. The Engineering Failures That Ended It
The same mountain geography that made the railroad impressive also caused its ultimate demise:
- The Flood of 1927: In November 1927, unprecedented torrential rains swept through New England. The swollen Sawyer River tore through the valley, washing out trestles, stripping away ballast, and destroying large sections of the track bed.
- The Mill Fire of 1928: Just months after the flood damage, a fire destroyed the main Livermore sawmill. With the surrounding slopes already heavily harvested and the cost of rebuilding the rail line and mill prohibitive, the Saunders family chose not to reconstruct the line.
- Abandonment: The rails were pulled up for scrap metal, and the locomotive stock was sold off or scrapped.
Today, much of the historic Sawyer River Trail in the White Mountain National Forest follows the original graded railbed of the Sawyer River Railroad, where hikers can still walk the exact route the steam trains climbed a century ago.
So color me impressed. Two Livermores, two opposite ends.
Livermore
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