30 min north of the lodge up I-93, past Franconia Notch, the interstate drops into the Ammonoosuc valley and the town of Littleton, the commercial center of New Hampshire's North Country and the most complete Main Street in the region. It is a real town rather than a resort: a hardware store, a bookshop, a diner that has fed the town since 1930, a candy store in the record books, a brewery in the oldest commercial building north of Concord, a hospital, and a river walk with a covered footbridge over the Ammonoosuc. Guests who have had enough of trailheads for a day drive here for lunch and come back with fudge.
It is also the town that gave the world Pollyanna. Eleanor H. Porter, who wrote the 1913 novel about the relentlessly glad orphan, was born in Littleton in 1868 and lived here until 1892, and the town has adopted her heroine: a bronze Pollyanna stands in front of the library with her arms flung wide, and the town celebrates a Glad Day each June. Littleton is the kind of place that takes a joke about itself and puts up a statue.
This guide covers Main Street and what is on it, the river walk and the bridge, the brewery and the diner, the candy counter, the mountain-bike trails on the edge of town, the practical addresses a visitor might need in a hurry, and how to fit it into a half day with the drive. It pairs with our Bethlehem and Franconia guides for a full northern loop.
Main Street, from one end to the other
Littleton's Main Street runs about half a mile along the north bank of the Ammonoosuc, lined with brick and clapboard blocks from the town's nineteenth-century boom as a mill and railroad town. It is walkable end to end in 20 min and takes two hours if you go into things: a proper independent bookstore, a toy shop, galleries, outdoor and clothing stores, the Thayers Inn with its columned front, coffee, and the candy counter that draws the tour buses. Park on the street or in the lots behind the buildings on the river side; the meters are cheap and the walk to everything is short.
The town keeps its storefronts full, which is rarer than it should be in the North Country, and the result is a Main Street that feels lived in on a Tuesday in November as well as a Saturday in October. Lahout's, the outdoor and ski business that opened here in the 1920s and calls itself America's oldest ski shop, still has its flagship in town.
Chutters and the world's longest candy counter
Chutters, a general store on Main Street, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous candy counter: 111 feet 11 inches, or 34.11 meters, of glass jars on three tiers holding some seven hundred kinds of candy, from penny sweets nobody has made in decades to the fudge the store cooks itself. You take a bag and a scoop and walk the length of it. It is unashamedly a tourist stop and it is a very good one; go in the morning on a foliage weekend, before the buses.
Pollyanna, Eleanor Porter and Glad Day
In front of the public library on Main Street stands a bronze Pollyanna, arms thrown wide, by the New Hampshire sculptor Emile Birch, unveiled in 2002. It honors Eleanor Hodgman Porter, born in Littleton in 1868 and a resident until 1892, whose 1913 novel Pollyanna sold in the millions and added a word to the language. The town leans into it: her silhouette appears around downtown, and the annual Glad Day in June celebrates her with a festival on the green. The statue is a 2 min stop and a good photograph, and the library behind it is a handsome building in its own right.
The river walk and the covered footbridge
Behind Main Street the Ammonoosuc River runs fast over ledges, and a river walk follows it. Its centerpiece is the Riverwalk Covered Bridge, a pedestrian covered bridge of roughly three hundred feet built in the Warren truss style and completed in September 2004, which crosses the river from the mill district to the far bank. It is new, but it is a real timber covered bridge over a real river, and standing inside it with the water loud below is the best free minute in town. The walk connects the bridge, the old mill buildings and Main Street's back lots.
Schilling Beer Co.: lagers in a 1797 grist mill
At the river end of Mill Street, beside the covered bridge, Schilling Beer Co. brews European-style lagers and ales inside a grist mill built in 1797, the oldest commercial building north of Concord, with the river running past the windows and a deck over the water. Nearly all of its beer is sold on the premises, in the taproom and by the growler, along with wood-fired pizza, which makes it the natural lunch or late-afternoon stop in town and the reason many of our guests drive up in the first place. It is busy on weekends; the wait is spent on the bridge.
The Littleton Diner
The Littleton Diner on Main Street has fed the town since 1930, when Eugene and Stella Stone set up a parlor-car diner with an open kitchen and twenty-five seats; its success let them replace it in 1940 with the present Sterling diner, built by the J. B. Judkins Company of Merrimac, Massachusetts, and still in service with its counter and booths. It does breakfast all day, pancakes, hash and pie, and it is the right first stop if you drive up early. A historical marker outside tells the story.
PRKR MTN: twenty-five miles of trail behind town
Minutes from downtown, PRKR MTN Trails is a community-built network of more than twenty-five miles of trail on about a thousand acres of hillside, free to use, mixing old technical New England singletrack with newer machine-built flow trails for mountain bikers, and open to runners, hikers and, in winter, skiers and snowmobiles. In winter its volunteers groom more fat-bike singletrack than anywhere else in the state. For a hiker it is a pleasant wooded walk with views over the valley; for a rider it is the reason to bring the bike north. Littleton Bike and Fitness in town rents and repairs. Our cycling guide covers the network alongside its neighbors in Franconia and Bethlehem.
The practical town: hospital, urgent care, pharmacy
Littleton is also where the North Country's medical services live, which matters to a visitor with a problem. Littleton Regional Healthcare at 600 St. Johnsbury Road, off I-93 Exit 42, has a 24-hour emergency department, reached at 603-444-9000; ConvenientMD at 551 Meadow Street is a walk-in urgent care open eight to eight daily; and the hospital's North Country Pharmacy is the pharmacy that now serves Lincoln by way of a prescription locker at Lincoln Urgent Care, since Lincoln lost its Rite Aid in 2025. Our hiker services guide has the full list; if you are in Littleton anyway and need a pharmacy, this is the town that has one.
Making a half day of it
Drive up I-93 through Franconia Notch, 30 min, and take Exit 41 or 42 into town. Breakfast at the diner, the candy counter before the crowds, Main Street's shops and the Pollyanna statue, the river walk and the covered bridge, and lunch at Schilling on the deck. Then either home down the interstate, or the northern loop: Route 302 east to Bethlehem for the Colonial Theatre and Rek-lis, and back through Franconia and Sugar Hill on Routes 116 and 117 with the Frost Place and Polly's Pancake Parlor, home over the notch. Our Bethlehem and Franconia guides cover the second half.
Littleton is a fine rainy-day town. Everything worth doing is indoors or under a roof except the trails, and the bridge is covered.
Where to stay
From 191 Pollard Road, I-93 North through the Franconia Notch Parkway and on past Exit 38 and 40 to Exit 41 or 42, about 30 min; the drive through the notch is the prettiest half of it. In winter the interstate is plowed and the trip is the same.
Our guests usually go up for lunch and the candy counter on a rest day or a rainy one, and combine it with Bethlehem and the Franconia loop when they have the afternoon. Tell us if you are going on a Sunday; a few shops keep shorter hours and we will tell you which.
Useful links
- Chutters: the candy counter
The Main Street store and its record-holding counter. - Schilling Beer Co.
Hours and the taproom menu at the 1797 mill. - Littleton Diner
Hours and the history of the 1940 Sterling diner. - PRKR MTN Trails
Trail maps and the winter grooming report. - Littleton Regional Healthcare
The emergency department, urgent care and the North Country Pharmacy. - Our Bethlehem guide
The next town east on Route 302, for the second half of a northern day. - Our Franconia and Sugar Hill guide
The loop home through the Frost Place and Polly's. - Our cycling and mountain biking guide
PRKR MTN alongside the Franconia and Bethlehem networks.
Sources & official info: guinnessworldrecords.com · chutters.com · schillingbeer.com · littletondiner.com · prkrmtn.org · littletonhealthcare.org
— Launchpoint Lodge, From the lodge
