History of Eighty Concord Street

80 Concord Street

Robbins Motel, built by Elizabeth and Walter Robbins in 1948, was located on lower Concord Street, opposite Sand Hill Road intersection, and consisted of ten individual cabins on the banks of the Contoocook River. Following the conversion of the ten individual units into a single building in 1954, the motel held a grand reopening. Mary Lyon Schofield's remodeled boathouse was at first used as a restaurant and office for the motel, but later as additional bedrooms.

In 1957, due to ill health, Walter Robbins sold the business to Myrtle and Ernest Kussmaul (1959-63). Around this time began repeated floorings of the property and a succession of new owners and new names for the business: Samuel Calkin's Heart O'Monadnock Motor Lodge (1962-65); Ruth and Beland Peirce's Pack Monadnock Motel (1965-68); and Helen and Jack Burwick's King of the Road Motor Inn (1968-74). In 1975 Frances and Daniel O'Rourke and Jean and Jack Bullock acquired the motel and completely renovated the buildings. Then called Countryside Lodging, it included a restaurant called Jack Daniel's Restaurant and Pub.

In January 1986, a midwinter flooding of the Contoocook moved the motel building, then called Jack Daniel's Motor Inn, off its foundations, and had to be demolished. About 40,000 yards of fill were added to the site to raise the land to a new height above the river; then a new eighteen-unit motel was built. It opened for business in 1987, and so far the added land elevation has warded off flooding.

SOURCE: OurChanging Town: Peterborough 1939-1989, Vol I, page 113-114.

1948-1958

Robbins Motel, Elizabeth and Walter Robbins

1958-1962

Robbins Motel, Myrtle and Ernest Kussmaul

1962-1965

Heart O' Monadnock Lodge, Samuel Calkins

1965-1968

Pack Monadnock Motel, Ruth G and Beland H Peirce

1968-1974

King of the Road Motor Inn, Helen and Jack L Burwick

1974-1975

King of the Road Motor Inn, reverts to Peirces

1975-1985

Countryside Lodging, Frances and Daniel O'Rourke, Jeana and John Bullock

1985

Grace and Ernest Patnaude

1986

Flood ruins building

1987-1989

New Jack Daniel's Motor Inn, the O'Rourkes and the Bullocks

SOURCE: Our Changing Town: Peterborough 1939-1989, page 418-419.