On August 3, 1923, an inferno, culminating with the explosion of 800 gallons of fuel, leveled Profile House, a grand hotel located under the gaze of the “Old Man”, between Profile Lake and Echo Lakes at the top of the Notch. The fire burned for only four hours, but that fire set in motion a remarkable five-year campaign to preserve under public ownership one of the most sublime and featured landscapes in the Northeast, Franconia Notch.