back to home

RISE OF THE SKI AREAS - 1934

Before 1934 skiers spent most of their days climbing hills. But then, on Jan. 28, 1934, a model T Ford truck engine was hooked to 1,800 feet of rope through a system of pulleys in Clinton Gilbert's farm north of Woodstock.

It was called the "ski way," and suddenly it was possible for a skier to spend more time going down the hill than up. The next year Wallace "Bunny" Bertram installed an electric motor that enabled the tow to carry 300 skiers an hour.

Up north at Mount Mansfield, where a librarian from Dartmouth is believed to have made the first descent on skis in 1914, forester Perry Merrill, Charlie Lord and a crew of Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps men were carving out the first trial cut specifically for skiing.

Skiing was becoming a big business. It owed a great deal of its growth and success to the government. The state provided much of the forest or park land for the ski areas and paid for many of the access roads to them.

The federal government, through the CCC, built many of the trails. Ski areas multiplied, but then, faced with increasing liability insurance costs, a number closed. But those that remained grew bigger and bigger. It's estimated that about 4 million ski lift tickets are sold annually.