All New Hampshire residents receive free admission to the Flume Gorge, Aerial Tram and Echo Lake Beach Friday to celebrate the 75th anniversary celebration of New Hampshire’s Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway. For best viewing, be at the beach.

The tram was the brain child of Alexander Bright, a famous skier who first proposed the idea in 1933.

In spring 1934, a committee appointed by Gov. John G. Winant unanimously recommended that the tram be built on Cannon, but it wasn’t until 1938 that it was completed.

Forty two years later, the Aerial Tramway II replaced the original Tram. It ascends Cannon’s slopes for 5,359 feet.

Each of the two cabins nicknamed Mustard and Ketchup for their bright colors can carry 80 passengers and one attendant. The cabins glide up the mountain at 1,500 feet per minute, with an hourly passenger capacity of 1,540 or 770 in each direction more than three times the capacity of the original tramway.