The Oceanic Hotel

This modern hotel wiped out a 250-year old fishing village

Since the 1620s Star Island had been a key fishing station for Atlantic cod since its flat rocky surface, low elevation, and constant breezes were ideal for drying fish. The isolated fishing village evolved into the New Hampshire town of Gosport with a colorful and largely impoverished population. Then in 1873, the year of the murders, a wealthy Boston spice merchant named John R. Poor secretly purchased the island real estate in order to build the grand Oceanic Hotel (see above). Its construction destroyed the historic fishing village and killed the town of Gosport. Tourists flocked to the island hotel the summer following the murders. Two years later, the same year that Louis Wagner was hanged, the Oceanic burned to the ground. The second Oceanic (see below), the one that survives today, was built in 1875. The following year Mr. Poor sold his hotel to the Laighton family, owners of the Appledore Hotel nearby. (Photos courtesy of Portsmouth Athenaeum and Nate Hamilton)