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Lake Placid, 1932
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How the Olympics came to a sleepy Adirondack village
By Morten Lund
The fact that in 1932 an Olympics came to America at all is a story with a bit of a strangeness about it, not least of all, the main American personality involved.  The Lake Placid 1932 Winter Olympics was sought, awarded and brought about by the force of will of one man, a bravura performance by Godfrey Dewey, head of the Lake Placid Club in the New York Adirondacks. The strong-minded son of the strong-minded patriarch Melvil Dewey, Godfrey indeed proved to be that American invention, the one-man band. Not only did he secure the Games, but carried them off successfully in spite of a run of violent disagreements, horrendous organizational problems, and a catastrophic turn in the weather.

 His father Melvil Dewey was the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, still used to systematize library books. He also invented a system of simplified spelling. and the Lake Placid Club—in that order. Melvil established club in 1895 as a locale of genteel hiking, tennis, swimming and golf, set some three hundred miles north of New York City and half that far from the Canadian border. In 1905, in a daring move for the time, Melvil kept the club open all winter, laying in a supply of toboggans, sleds, snowshoes, and skis. He broke even during his first snow season and thus the Lake Placid Club became the first continuously operating winter resort in the U.S., a title it still holds.

By the time Godfrey took over management of the club in the 1920s, it was recognized as the leading ski center of the East. This was due in part to the constant round of New York celebrities who had skied there: bandleader Rudy Vallee, singer Kate Smith, Broadway dancer Marilyn Miller, among others But it was no Chamonix, no St. Moritz. It had no big hotels, no casinos, no nightlife, only a large rambling club building in faux frontier style known as “adirondack,” which featured posts and beams more or less as cut from the stump, peeled, and roughly trimmed. In addition to rooms in the club, there was a group of large cottages built in the same mode.

The idea of putting an Olympics on at a rustic famiy cottage colony in the Adirondack wilds was staggering in its pretensions. The Club had catered to a restricted list of guests who had sufficient money to spend on expensive  family vacations, and who also did not mind strict rules. There was no smoking, no ostentatious dress and no “rekles skiing,” as spelled out in Dewey’s simplified manner. (The onsite ski club founded by Melvil was officially the “Lake Placid Sno Birds.”) Definitely a family resort, Lake Placid also hosted—for the entertainment of its guests—a series of college ski circuit events from the 1920s onward. The club had good college ski jump at Intervale.  For guests, it had some cross country trails and a decent outdoor skating rink. There were also political connections to the ski establishment, particularly with Fred Harris who had founded the collegiate circuit (after having founded the Dartmouth Outing Club). And with Harry Wade Hicks, the secretary  of the Lake Placid Club who was also secretary of the college circuit and president of the U.S. Eastern Ski Association.   That and a million dollars, Godfrey figured, would give him an Olympics.

Looking ahead, Godfrey managed in 1928 to insert his right-hand man, Harry Wade Hicks. into the job of manager of the 1928 U.S. team at St. Moritz. Godfrey and Harry had gone around the events at the Second Winter Games events lobbying the members of the four-year-old FIS and the 32-year-old International Olympic Committee. In an IOC executive session, Swedish delegate Col. Holmquist declared that in his opinion, although there were ski organizations in the United States and Canada, neither “had the necessary competence to organize ski events.” But for some reason, the IOC as a whole seemed to welcome the idea of an American venue. Perhaps delegates sensed that the alternative was tan endless round of hotel-centered resorts within the 400-mile radius of the Continent’s high Alps, an outcome that would not match the intended international character of the Olympic organization as a whole. The IOC decision was due in 1929 at Lausanne, its headquarters.

“Godfrey Deway,” wrote U.S Academic ski historian John Allen, in his 1994 Olympic Perspectives (from which much of the background material for this section of the article was taken),” was in most ways unsuited for the job of managing a world event but he had an outstanding characteristic which often times played against him but which in the final analysis was responsible for the 1932 Winter Games being  Godfrey Dewey’s Olympics: a meddling stubbornness to see things through his own way. He changed the artist’s designs on the medals, he dealt with the minutiae of bureaucracy… he chose Bjorn Billion already under his thumb as Club instructor to make the rounds of Europe. These were matters he dealt with just as if he were at the Lake Placid Club.” One of his more egregious mistakes was to have Lake Placid Club secretary Harry Wade Hicks lay out the Olympic cross country courses, whose design and execution would be widely criticized.

Godfrey’s stubbornness had some formidable initial barriers to assail. One of them was persuading then-New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt to fund the quarter-million dollar construction of the bobsled run. Then there was convincing the International Olympic Committee that Lake Placid would build a Cresta sled run Godfrey had no intention of funding at all. Then there was the matter of winning over the ski nations in the FIS, the group responsible for sanctioning the ski events, who mostly thought of American skiing as being a backwoods kind of thing, (which it was). Oh, and one other thing. First of all, Godfrey had to block the competing Olympic bid from Yosemite, California.

That bid was headed by William May Garland, president of the California X Olympiad Association. Trying to head him off at the pass, Godfrey wrote Garland a long letter in which he pointed out that the Yosemite winter sport development had a much shorter pedigree than Lake Placid’s, that Yosemite had never held a National Ski Association or USEASA-sanctioned tournament. Godfrey was reluctant, he wrote Garland, “to be placed in the position of urging our superior facilities and long experience in winter sports against the express desire of California.” (which of course was exactly what Godfrey had been doing all along). Godfrey suggested Garland simply withdraw Yosemite’s bid, but Garland replied grimly, “Let the  best man win.”

In April 1929 at Lausanne, Godfrey insisted that Yosemite show the IOC a film making much of Yosemite's natural beauties. He thereby proved that 1) by comparison, Lake Placid was a sophisticated winter sports center, and 2) Yosemite was not much more than a heavily forested, high mountain valley. The IOC delegates opted for Lake Placid.

To put it kindly, Lake Placid did not have nearly the facilities that had already been in place for holding the Chamonix and St. Moritz Games. Lake Placid was the first case of an Olympic infrastructure built expressly to harbor an oncoming Games. It was the first trial of the idea that “if they come, we will build it.” (This is the exact reverse of course of the famed Field of Dreams mantra, “If we build it, they will come.”)

Therefore the cost of the III Winter Olympics reached an astonishing $1 million ($9 million today). It was astonishing not only relative to the much smaller costs of hosting the two previous Olympics but in particular because the Great Wall Street Crash of 1929 had newly precipitated what was going to become the Great Depression. But it can be assumed that most of the club’s conservative middle class members had kept their exposure to Wall Street moderate because the club was able to start things off by raising $200,000 in bonds issued by the adjacent town of North Elba. They were sold to well-to-do members and Lake Placid citizens whose pride or businesses would be sent sky high by a Lake Placid Olympics. When American Olympic Association member Carl Messelt pointed out that the bonds would be irredeemable after the Games were over, since the town treasury would be exhausted, he was ignored. North Elba raised another $150,000 with a second bond issue.

As one initiative, Godfrey sent Fred Harris to the 1930 FIS Congress in Oslo, representing the National Ski Association and USEASA. The FIS was in charge of ski events, so Harris circulated the profiles of the Intervale jumping hill and two course plans for the 50 km cross country among the delegates, who seemed content with that. But they objected to the proposed $10 ($90 today) entrance fee on the grounds that Lake Placid, being so near New York, would be in line to make a killing. That was not the Olympic idea. Still, though the FIS could still pull the rug out from under, Harris left the meeting with the feeling that come decision-time, the Europeans would support Lake Placid.

On the home front, Godfrey was battling the American Olympic Association whose newly-established president, Avery Brundage, was for the first time fitting on his fright mask as the once and future scourge of the Winter Games. Brundage weighed in during January 1931 with the pronouncement that the Lake Placid efforts were “doomed to failure” and made it plain that Godfrey Dewey could expect no help from him. Brundage published an AOA fund-raising brochure under the signature of U.S. President Herbert Hoover in which the Lake Placid Winter Olympics went unmentioned. Godfrey countered with his own fund raising brochure with letter signed by President Hoover in July 1931. Brundage was furious not only because his own fund-raising was being spiked but because Godfrey defrayed the cost of the brochure by carrying advertising. So un-Olympic.

 In the meantime, Governor Roosevelt did appropriate $125,000 in New York State funds for the construction of the bobsled run. Next Godfrey lobbied for $400,00 to construct an indoor rink for the skating and hockey events. But Governor Roosevelt was dubious about the benefit to the general public of a building that would only be in official use for one week before reverting to Lake Placid. It took two more years to convince Roosevelt. On February 9th, 1933, with the Games exactly a year off, the governor signed an appropriation for $375,000. One factor in Roosevelt’s thinking was obviously that in his intended run against Hoover in the 1932 elections for the U. S. presidency, an Olympics would provide a guaranteed platform before a fine array of U.S. press and news film people. (News reels provided the equivalent of TV with news shorts that played before the main movie at all theaters throughout the United States).

Thus the skating events were secure, the bobsled events were all set and the nordic ski events had been provided for. The alpine events were ignored. Although downhill and slalom had been accepted as legitimate by the FIS, which had run its first alpine championships in 1931 at Mürren, Switzerland, Godfrey was anything but anxious to spend scarce resources on building downhill courses—which he hadn't promised anyway.

Seventeen nations, including the U.S., sent a total of 447 skiers, sledders and skaters to the third Winter Olympics. Approximately a fifth of these were U.S. competitors. The rest came overland and by boat.

Naturally, it was a horrible snow year.

The weather was the warmest on record. The upper reaches of the nearby Hudson River, which had reliably frozen solid every year during the 146 years for which weather records had been kept, did not freeze during the 147th year in the winter of 1932. A major thaw hit two weeks before the Games, with temperatures rising from below zero to 50 degrees in 24 hours, ruining the bobsled and cross country courses, the jumps, and the ice, and the training schedules of skiers, sledders and skaters alike.

The weather moderated; tons of snow were dug out of the woods and put onto the courses. Miraculous feats of organization and endurance testified to Godfrey's ability to get things done. George Carroll quoted Godfrey (in the February 1960 Ski) as saying, “ It was a case of never-say-die. We simply refused to admit defeat. Everyone, our own Olympic staff, the International Committee, village, town and state officials labored day and night.”

The bob run was repaired (the bobsled event was actually allowed to run a week after the Olympics to reach a conclusion).  Resurfaced skating ovals grew solid. On February 4, 1932 Governor Roosevelt declared the Third Winter Games open and called for world peace. (The Japanese had already opened the preliminaries of World War II by invading Chinese Manchuria.) U.S. skater Jack Shea took the Olympic pledge on behalf of all the competitors.

Two non-skiing events were of interest to the future of skiing. Billy Fiske, the 1928 gold bobsled medalist, won again at the Lake Placid bobsled run and became a national hero. Having learned about skiing at two Olympics, he became a skier himself. In 1936, he was one of three men to finance the first high alpine ski accommodations in the U.S., the Highland Bavarian Lodge outside Aspen. Every name skier from Dartmouth’s ski god Otto Schniebs on down came to stay long weeks at Highland Bavarian and publish thereafter illustrated accounts. Fiske’s effort had a wondrous effect in advertising the mountain beauty of the setting of what would become U.S. skiing’s first mega-resort.

In skating, Norway's Sonja Henie came in head and shoulders over the competition, scoring her second Olympic gold (her first was at St. Moritz).  She would win again at the Fourth Olympics. Launched from her Olympic platform, she would go on to movie career during which she would star in the most famous ski film of all time, Sun Valley Serenade. Even though her skiing in the film was done by doubles, and though she never actually went to Sun Valley (her parts were shot on the studio stage), Henna’s glamour added up to an enormous boost, almost as much as the 1932 Olympics themselves, to recreational skiing in the U.S.

In the 18-kilometer, Norway's Johan Grottumsbraaten, double gold medallist in the 1928 Games, was beaten by two Swedes, Sven Utterstrom and Axel Vikstrom, who had a secret weapon: a diet of brown beans, oatmeal, salt herring and Knackebrod, especially prepared by the Swedish team's traveling cook. Ollie Zetterstram, the first American finisher in the 15km, placed 23rd. The next day, in the combined jump event, Grottumsbraaten scored high enough to win the Nordic Combined gold.

The 50-km event proved to be one of the most contentious. The snow finally came with a vengeance: the season's first blizzard broke upon Lake Placid on the day of the race. The course had been laid out to double back on itself, a design that so angered some of the coaches that three hours were spent in arguing the point back and forth while the blizzard got worse. When the race finally came off, the high-seeded starters had to break track through the soft, new-fallen snow, were all soundly beaten by relative unknowns who started late and had the advantage of a more solidly packed track. The winner was Vaino Likkanen of Finland, who started in 23rd place.

Next to photogenic Sonja Henie in the figure-skating event, the press paid most attention to the exotic entry: Japan. The Japanese were not only copying the military ways of the West with a vengeance but entering the world athletic contests, unfortunately sometimes two faces of a single nationalist coin. Time, in reporting on the Games in its usual lack of comprehension of winter sports at the time, printed Norwegian jumper Birger Ruud's name as “Birger Rudd,” and superskater Sonja Henie's as “Sonja Henje.”

Even more benightedly, Time stated that one of the features of the Games was "the amazing incompetence of the Japanese…The Japanese fancy skaters, who had studied this sport in books, found it hard to keep their footing…two Japanese skiers were injured by turning somersaults off the ski jump, and another who fell down in front of the schoolhouse, amused Lake Placid children by his inability to get up."

The Japanese, contrary to Time's version, were neither wholly incompetent or lacking innovation or courage. During the 50-km, a Japanese assistant coach set up a portable wind-up record player at the most difficult part of the course, a steep ravine. Every time a Japanese skier came by, the coach wound up his machine and blasted out the Japanese national anthem, which so galvanized each Japanese competitor that he scaled the ravine's uphill side at a roaring clip.

The top Japanese jumper, Gaio Adachi, spun into the grandstand in a training jump on the Intervale hill, was injured and had to be hospitalized. Nevertheless, Adachi got up from his hospital bed to post jumps of 196 and 215 feet and placed eighth, foreshadowing the mistake of underestimating the Japanese, which cost us dearly a dozen years later in World War II. More benignly, the Japanese will to win also foreshadowed the Sapporo Olympics of 1972 in which Japanese jumpers swept all three special jump medals.

The amazing heroics of the Japanese aside, Norway dominated the jumping by sweeping the special jump with Birger Ruud getting a silver, the first of a clutch of Olympic medals. The USA’s Casper Oimen came in fifth, the highest score in an Olympic event for the U.S. to date. And then Norway got third in the 50-km as well to make it seven medals in three of the four nordic events.

Norwegians were so fanatic about maintaining the Games a shrine to pure amateurism wouldn't even let the Lake Placid ski pro, Erling Strom, tend the jump hill during the Games. They felt equally strongly that the sanctity of the original aim of the Games, competition of individual against individual, was violated by the country-vs-country slant of U.S. news reportage. The Norwegians' anger was not even the least bit mollified when New York Sun columnist Edwin B. Dooley reminded readers that approximately 90 American entries in all events, including skating, figure skating, and bobsled, had "a combined point total only a few [points] more than…a handful of Norwegians."

Over 80,000 tickets were sold for the third Winter Games. Among the attendees were the requisite celebrities including the world’s most famous radio newscaster, Lowell Thomas, reporting from location, and Admiral Richard Byrd, scouting among the cross-country competitors for rugged specimens who might be persuaded to come on Byrd's next polar expedition. Press coverage was much better and more widespread than had been anticipated. Some of it was a bit hyperbolic because the main hangout of the good old boys among reporters was in the basement bar of a local inn where newsmen took and held nearly all the seats. Columnist Westbrook Pegler called it “the Cellar Athletic Club.”  Wrote George Carroll, “Some of the most dramatic stories of the week were filed by reporters who got no closer to the bobrun or the ski jump.”

The Olympics recruited one of the sports’ staunchest and most effective advocates. “It was the Olympics at Lake Placid that really sold me on skiing.” Writing under his own byline in the February 1960 Ski Life, Lowell admitted that he had gotten hooked after Erling Strom had given him his first ski lesson during the 1932 Olympics. Lowell’s subsequent radio broadcasts from ski resorts like Mt. Tremblant and Aspen, where he had gone to ski, were the kind of exposure publicity agents dream about. Lowell’s nightly audiences registered in the tens of millions and he was usually at a resort for a week or more.

Lake Placid’s post-Olympic notices were mixed. The one from the Technical Committee of the FIS was less than laudatory, commenting somewhat acidly on Godfrey’s tendency to maintain tight control by using only trusted aides. “Too big a burden was undoubtedly placed on two few men’s shoulders and those did not manager to perform all that was up to them. They also lacked skilled helpers possessing knowledge and initiative. The arrangements for the skiing contests must be termed unsatisfactory due to the fact that management was not entrusted to experts.”

But IOC president Count de Ballait-Latour in his official report congratulated Godfrey, saying he was “more than pleased at the plans made for staging the Games in Lake Placid, facilities for the conduct of sports and other arrangements. ” He noted “the exceptional manner in which this obligation was discharged, a great task masterfully handled.”

The closing ceremonies were presided over by New York City Major Jimmy Walker, who could never pass up a party anywhere, even in the snow. The crowds cheered Walker as they had cheered Roosevelt, and cheered winners and losers the whole ten days. The general public tone, in spite of the wet weather, was one of excitement and general self-congratulation that a small American mountain town in splendid natural surroundings had been readied successfully for such a gigantic international event.  The 1932 event was unique. For the first time it was apparent that what big St. Moritz could, little Lake Placid could also do: the proof was there. And the world paid attention.

 

01/21/2014 - 12:00 AM
Lake Placid, 1932
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Morten Lund - Author
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Seth Masia

Beginning in 1891, skimakers in Norway sought to replace heavy hickory with lighter woods, originally to create faster cross-country racing skis. Over 45 years, laminated skis evolved into the multi-layered high-performance Splitkein and A&T products of the mid-30s.

See the full story here.

 

12/02/2013 - 2:41 AM
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In 1935 Seattle native Al Nydin had the idea for a magazine about skiing. Until that time most ski periodicals and annuals were association-published. In publishing America’s first independent, commercial magazine, Nydin used the title SKI. The first issue appeared in January 1936.

For a long time it was speculated that no surviving copies of the premier issue of SKI Magazine were in existence. But Seattle ski historian Kirby Gilbert has a copy, which he scanned for the International Skiing History Association’s website, www.skiinghistory.org.

SKI was renamed Ski Illlustrated, moved to New York City at the time World War II broke out, and was resuscitated in 1948 in Hanover, NH by publisher William Eldred, who combined Ski Illustrated, Western Skiing, and Ski News under the present title SKI Magazine.

For a nostalgic look back at what a ski magazine looked like 75 years ago, see attachmed below to view all 36 pages of SKI’s premier issue, including the stories and advertisements.

NOTE PLEASE: This is largish .pdf file and may download slowly on some computers.

This website contains an index of all articles in SKI Magazine from 1941 to 1993.

08/27/2013 - 12:15 AM
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John W. Lundin and Stephen J. Lundin

This story was published by HistoryLink.org, a free online encyclopedia of Washington state history.

Milwaukee Ski Train

Milwaukee Ski Train (image courtesy of MOHAI)

The opening of the Snoqualmie Ski Bowl on January 8, 1938, revolutionized skiing in the Pacific Northwest. Developed by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad (known as the Milwaukee Road), the ski area, located at the Hyak stop at the east end of the Snoqualmie Pass tunnel, was renamed the Milwaukee Ski Bowl after World War II to differentiate it from the nearby Snoqualmie Ski Area.  Accessible by train from Seattle, the Ski Bowl offered the Northwest’s first ski lift and lighted slopes for night skiing.  This history of the Milwaukee Ski Bowl and Seattle-area skiing in the 1930s and 1940s was written by John W. Lundin and Stephen J. Lundin, based largely on their research in the digital archives of The Seattle Times, which sponsored ski lessons at the Ski Bowl and provided extensive coverage of the local ski scene. The authors’ mother, Margaret Odell Lundin (1916-2001), played a role in the early days of the Ski Bowl. Margaret Odell was the adviser to the Queen Anne High School Ski Club and for three years took her charges to the bowl for lessons. She was young, single, and attractive and was often interviewed for skiing articles.

Excitement Grows

Skiing on Snoqualmie Pass dates back to the first decades of the 1900s, when it was centered around ski lodges built by private clubs. In 1914, The Mountaineers built a lodge just west of the summit. Other lodges were built by ski clubs in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1934, the Seattle Park Board opened a ski area called Municipal Park at Snoqualmie Summit. In those days, there were no tows to take skiers up the hill — they used skins on their skiis to climb up before they could ski down. The trip to the pass by car on icy roads was always an adventure. The Ski Bowl changed all of this.

Excitement grew in the fall of 1937, as news of the Ski Bowl appeared in Seattle papers. The bowl had two hundred acres, “mostly wooded but with cleared ski runs from the Old Milwaukee grade crossing down out of the ‘rim’ section of the Bowl to the flat area in which the railroad company has erected a two story … ski cabin.”

One of the Northwest’s best ski instructors was hired to give lessons: Ken Syverson, an assistant to noted Austrian instructor Otto Lang. An “instruction course” was cleared close to the ski cabin where lessons would be held.

The Milwaukee Road ran ads promoting the Ski Bowl: “All aboard for the newest of the winter playgrounds, Snoqualmie Ski Bowl (61 miles east of Seattle).” The Seattle Times said the ski trains should “come in first in the ski area’s rating of excellence.” Ski Trains had “warm, comfortable coaches, a specially equipped baggage car for storing your skis, and a recreation car for dancing.”  There was a covered platform at the Ski Bowl offering protection to the passengers departing from the train.

The Ski Lodge was a two-story building “capable of unlimited expansion,” with a waxing room and ski racks on the first floor, and a large recreation room with a fireplace and a 94 foot lunch counter on the second floor. Skiers had their choice of downhill runs, steep or casual. More than 300 tickets were sold for the first weekend.

The Ski Bowl had the region’s first ski lift, an 1,800 foot “Sun Valley type lift,” later called  a Poma lift:

“Suspended from the cable are other cables, ending in a trapeze-like wooden handle to which the skier clings. He stays on his skis, keeps in a track, and is pulled up the course at about four miles an hour — a moderate pace, but it takes no time to get to the top. Then when he leaves the grade crossing, he has his choice of five downhill runs, each named after a crack Milwaukee train … Olympian, Hiawatha, Pioneer, Arrow and Chippewa.”

The Ski Bowl opened on January 8, 1938, hosting 1,200 skiers. Ceremonies included music by the Franklin High School band, and the crowning of a ski queen who was shown walking through a tunnel created by two lines of skiers holding their skis above her. The ski lift experienced some problems, as skiers’ enthusiasm derailed the cable twice as the boys and girls swung back and forth on the “hangers.” A total of 1,584 rides on the lift were taken despite the delays. The lift’s capacity for the opening weekend was 300 skiers per hour, but it was expected to double by the following weekend.

Seattle’s stores promoted their ski ware. Cunningham’s offered ski equipment: ridge top hickory skis, poles, and Almonte adjustable bindings for $13.95; maple ridge top skis, poles, and Almonte adjustable bindings for $10.95; complete children’s outfits for $7.95; and flat top skis, bindings, and poles for $8.95. Harry B. Cunningham, who operated the store, was a pivotal force in promoting Seattle skiing. He was the boys’ counselor at Garfield High School and served as the ski adviser for Garfield students, sharing chaperoning duties on trips to the Ski Bowl with Queen Anne High School Ski Club adviser Margaret Odell. Cunningham lived in Montlake, one house up from the Montlake business district. He opened one of the earliest ski shops in Seattle, with equipment and supplies available for sale and lease. Cunningham operated out of his basement and garage until 1948, when he moved the ski shop into a storefront in the Montlake business district, where Cunningham’s Ski Lodge flourished for years.

Ski Trains

The Ski Bowl and trains overcame opposition from parents and school officials who had worried about lack of control on the way to skiing and the dangers of traveling by car on snowy roads. “Today, however, with ski trains carrying these youthful ski aspirants, the opposition is melting to a great degree. … It is expected that the Ski Bowl and ski trains will do much in the future to erase the official objection.”

Ski trains were an immediate success, and the Ski Bowl became the primary destination of Northwest skiers. The railroad built on the region’s intense interest in outdoor sports, and the lack of adequate highway access to ski areas. Its catch phrase, “Let the Engineer do the Driving,” highlighted the ski package’s ease and convenience. High school ski clubs were formed to take advantage of the easy access to the ski area. The Seattle Times offered free ski lessons, and thousands of students enrolled to learn skiing.

“The area is well lighted and later trains will permit skiing well into the evening.”  Trains for night skiing featured “two big recreation coaches for dancing. Geo Smith’s famous orchestra will provide music, but to have even more fun, bring your own instruments too.”  Evening ski trains left Tacoma at 4:45 and Seattle at 6:00, arrived at the Bowl at 8:00, and began the return trip at 10:00 p.m. It was determined, after “profound research,” that this was the first night ski train in America. That first night ski train carried 300 skiers to an “evening’s sport at the bowl.” In three hours, the participants got all the skiing they wanted and arrived back in Seattle at 1:00 a.m. The night’s record was 12 runs for a total of 3,600 feet of skiing, and the average was six or seven runs.

The Snoqualmie Ski Bowl closed for the season on March 17, 1938, after hosting 11,000 skiers over 11 weekends.

Ski Lessons

For 1939, the Milwaukee Road improved its resort, including scraping the hills and gullies “smooth as the skin you love to touch” so skiers could ski soon after the first snow. The lodge was doubled in size, and the covered concourse from the train platform to the lodge was lengthened from 100 to 400 feet. The ski lift had been speeded up and the bugs taken out of the mechanism. With the new addition, the top floor of the lodge was used for lounging, dancing, and viewing “the entire panorama of ski action on the five slopes fanning away from the lodge” through large windows. Railroad ads promoted skiing at the Bowl, saying “Double-Size Lodge, new ski runs, improved facilities.”  The railroad had a three-year plan and promised to keep expanding the Bowl’s facilities.

Two 14-car trains brought skiers to the “big opening” on January 7, 1939. Activities included a girls’ style show with a $50 prize for the girl who was “the most attractively and intelligently constumed for skiing,” a yodeling contest, and a giant slalom race. The Night Ski Train left Milwaukee Station at 5:30 p.m., returning at 11:00 p.m. The business college band was on board, and there was a wiener roast in the snow.

A Queen Anne-Garfield Ski Day was held the last weekend of January 1939,  a “very busy” day for Ken Syverson and his instructors. More than 225 registration cards had been distributed to Seattle schools for the ski classes, which “were snapped up by the skiers,” according to Margaret Odell, ski adviser at Queen Anne High School, who added, “They’re thoroughly sold on your school idea.”

In the first two weeks, 365 students took ski lessons. No more than 20 students per class were allowed, so each skier could obtain the maximum personal instruction. Classes were from one-and-a-half to two hours in length, depending on conditions. Syverson described the students’ progress:

“It is in the fundamentals of skiing. NOT pell-mell, center of the road wing-dinging, but in how to turn, how to control, how to catch the joy of skiing, because you have the feeling of skiing. … You saw rhythm take the place of jerk. You saw body swing replace a spill. You saw class after class of juvenile skiers catch on. They began to understand what controlled skiing, one of these days, will do for them.”

Ski school advisers Margaret Odell of Queen Anne and Harry Cunningham of Garfield were delighted with the instruction. Odell said:

“We’re glad to see skiing taught to them so sanely and effectively. … Another thing, the presence of the Milwaukee’s special agents on the train as supervisors is an excellent idea. That is a remarkably well-controlled ski special.”

By March 1939, Syverson said, “we’ve developed some skiers.”  At the Queen Anne, Broadway, and Garfield day at the Bowl, a queen was elected. Garfield skiers led the day’s competition, including jumping events held on a “hastily constructed snow-hill.”   After the morning’s class, the skiers demanded more, so Max Sarchett took the “top-notchers on a hill-climbing tour.”  All who went up came down, although they had to worry about sunburn from the blazing sun. There were “sunburned lads and lassies flitting from one end of the ski special to the other on the jaunt home.”  Margaret Odell was shown with six trophy cups for the winners of the  races that celebrated the end of the ski season.

It was a light-hearted day at the Bowl, with the instructors who had been working with the nearly 500Times School skiers helping show them how to run their first slalom race, and attempting to “prove” it, which means running it at high speed outside of the competition itself and frequently falling.

Ski Jumping

The following season, on January 21, 1940, “Kuay day” honored Queen Anne High School students. Some 576 students had signed up for ski lessons, and each week a different school took charge of organizing the activities. 200 Queen Anne students were in charge “under the guidance of Miss Margaret Odell, Kuay Ski Club adviser.” An electronic phonograph provided music on the train trip to and from the Pass, creating “infectious swing-time dancing and singing aboard the train that set the tempo for the day.” The student in charge of the phonograph described the scene on the train:

“I can’t keep up with ‘em, he declared. Too many requests, not enough ‘hot’ records. They love to ski and they love to dance in their ski clothes. I’ll bet I’ve played ‘Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny’ fifty times. That’s the best thing about this trip to the Bowl; you not only have the fun learning to ski, but you have fun on the train too.”

For the 1940 ski season, a giant ski-jump was built at the Ski Bowl for the jumping events of the National Four-Way Ski Championships in March. A new lift was built to hoist skiers to the top of the jump. The Class A hill had a greater-than-200-foot capacity, and Class B and C hills were constructed as well. The Milwaukee Road spent $15,000 on the big hill, designed by one of the most accomplished jumping hill designers.

The National Four-Way Championship was held between March 13 and 17, with events split between three different areas. Downhill and slalom races were held on Mount Baker; the cross-country race was held on Snoqualmie Pass; and the jumping competition at the Ski Bowl. Skiers from all over the country came to compete.

The biggest event was the jumping competition. Alf Engen, an Austrian ski instructor at Sun Valley, and Torger Tokle from Norway faced off on the big jump. Tokle was looking for revenge after Engen beat him in the National Jumping Championships at Berlin, N.H.

Sigurd Hall of the Seattle Ski Club won the downhill race at Mount Baker. Engen was third in the downhill, but won the slalom, beating two dozen racers. The skiers left Mount Baker for Snoqualmie Pass where the cross-country and jumping events were held.

Special trains took spectators to the Pass, leaving every half hour beginning at 8:30 a.m., and huge crowds were expected. Expectations were high that one of the jumpers would beat the national  record of 257 feet set that year at a meet in Wisconsin. Twenty competed on the Class A jump on the Bowl’s Olympian Hill. Others competed on the Class B jump. The jumping event overshadowed the cross-country competition, a rough 11 mile course in which Engen finished fourth.

The Seattle Times published a picture of Tokle jumping over the Ski Bowl, with a headline saying “Torger Tokle Rides out of the World.“ Tokle had longer jumps than did Engen, but Engen was the winner as Tokle “failed to display the form” shown by Engen. In ski jumping, points are awarded for form as well as distance. Engen, “the stocky skiman from Sun Valley went off with the works,” winning the overall title in the Four-Way Competition. “The newsreel boys expressed disappointment that they only had one spill to film in the jumping event, as only the first jumper fell, and the rest rode out their leaps.”

The Ski Bowl ended the 1940 season on March 27, with only 18 inches of snow remaining.

Fourth Season

The Bowl opened its fourth season on  January 4, 1941. Fare for the ski train was reduced to $1.25 for adults, and $1 for students. One train left Seattle at 8:30 a.m., returning at 5:00 p.m. “You can enjoy endless thrills and healthful fun at the beautiful snow fields at the Milwaukee Road’s popular Milwaukee Ski Bowl. With its facilities improved every year, the Ski Bowl is better and more popular than ever.” The Seattle Times ski lessons were offered again under the supervision of Ken Syverson. The Pacific Northwest Ski Association offered ski jumping lessons to juniors at the new ski jump at the Ski Bowl.

On January 12, the Ski Bowl hosted a giant slalom race for 75 of the best skiers in Washington and Oregon. The race was nearly a mile long, and was watched by 1,249 spectators who rode two “specials” to the Ski Bowl. Scott Osborn, “veteran Northwest ski racer,” won the race by four seconds.

Ski jumping was the passion in 1941. The first jumping competition was at Leavenworth in February, where Tokle had a “mighty leap of 273 feet,” setting a new North American record.

Excitement was great for the National Jumping Championships at the Ski Bowl on March 3. Tokle’s new record  made him a favorite, but the competition was tough. Last year’s winner, Alf Engen, had made a jump of 267 feet in Michigan, which would have set the record but for Torkle’s jump at Leavenworth.

On March 3, Tokle, “the human sky rocket from New York,” jumped 288 feet, setting another North American record in front of an excited crowd of 5,500 fans. Engen was second, and Arthur Devlin of Lake Placid was third. Tokle said that he wanted to come back next year, and if the takeoff was moved back 30 feet, he could jump 325 feet.  

World War II and After

The United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941, changing everything in the country, although it took some time for the full effects of the war to be felt.

The 1942 ski season started as planned at the Milwaukee Bowl. The Ski Bowl opened on January 3, and 800 boarded the trains on January 10, for Garfield day. Skiers who went to the Bowl found new improvements, including work done on the surface of the Bowl to smooth out its runs. Times ski lessons were given another year and Olav Ulland offered a junior jumping program. But some changes had to be made. Limits were placed on ski trains to comply with wartime demands, so there was only one train per day going to the Bowl, and it was limited to 70 skiers. A special “defense” ski evening ski event was held for Boeing and shipyard workers in late January.

The Seattle Ski Club hosted a jumping competition at the Ski Bowl with the proceeds going to the Red Cross War Fund. Torger Tokle, “the human airplane,” competed along with 20 other of the West Coast’s best jumpers. Tokle won the event but did not set a new record. He thought a 300 foot jump was possible given the existing setup.

March 27 was the final weekend  for the 1942 season.

Conditions had changed by the winter of 1942-1943. The Milwaukee Road decided not to operate the ski train, because the Office of Defense Transportation ordered that no sports specials could run for the duration of the war, and Times ski lessons were canceled. In December 1942, the Milwaukee Road shut down the Ski Bowl and committed its resources to the war effort.

Skiing started again after World War II ended. In 1945, lights for night skiing were installed at the Snoqualmie Summit ski area. In 1946, the Milwaukee Road resumed operations of the Ski Bowl, changing the name from “Snoqualmie Ski Bowl” to “Milwaukee Ski Bowl” to eliminate confusion with the Snoqualmie Summit ski area. The first high-capacity ski lift on Snoqualmie Pass was installed at the Ski Bowl in 1946, a surface lift that could carry 1,440 skiers per hour.

In 1947, the Milwaukee Ski Bowl hosted the Olympic Ski Jump Trials for the upcoming 1948 Olympic games, bringing in competitors from around the world. A new jumping record was set at the trials.

The year 1948 was a busy one for Snoqualmie Pass. The Ski Bowl hosted the U.S. ski-jumping championships. A new ski area, Ski Acres, opened one mile east of the Snoqualmie Summit, which had the first chairlift on the Pass. The Mountaineers built a lodge on land between the Ski Acres and Summit ski areas to replace their earlier building, which was lost to fire during World War II.

On December 2, 1949, tragedy struck as the Milwaukee Ski Bowl Lodge caught fire and burned to the ground. The only thing left standing was the fireplace, where “thousands of young enthusiasts once warmed themselves.”  The Milwaukee Road had spent as much s $30,000 the prior summer to prepare a new ski run and cut new trails, to make the bowl the “best all around ski center in the state.”

The railroad adopted a temporary solution for the 1950 season. A temporary building was built with rest rooms, first aid, and space for the ski patrol. A new spur line was constructed, on which several train cars were located for use as a kitchen and warming hut to accommodate the 200 skiers taking Times ski lessons.

After the 1950 season, the Milwaukee Ski Bowl closed for good as the railroad decided not to rebuild the lodge and to get out of the ski resort business. The Ski Bowl remained closed until 1959, when the Hyak Ski Area opened in its location. Hyak never generated the same excitement as did the Ski Bowl, and it was overshadowed by the ski areas at the Snoqualmie Summit, Ski Acres, and Alpental.

07/11/2013 - 5:33 PM
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John Fry

Photo: Gary Cooper (center) with Clark Gable (right) on Dollar Mountain, with their instructor, Sun Valley’s Sigi Engl. Sun Valley photo.

Imagine a small-size ski area with a 200-room hotel and a crowd of week-long guests hanging around – say, Robert Redford, Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen Spielberg, Bill Gates. Okay, you can only imagine it. But seven decades ago, such a place really existed.

It was Sun Valley. The Idaho resort brilliantly exploited the public’s fascination with celebrities to promote an exotic new kind of American vacation — skiing with chairlifts. Averell Harriman, the resort’s founder, hired New York-based publicist Steve Hannagan to prod Hollywood stars to go to Sun Valley. Pictures of them mastering the slopes on seven-foot skis appeared in millions of copies of newspapers and magazines. Gary (Sergeant York) Cooper and Clark (Gone with the Wind) Gable skied, along with Ingrid Bergman, Claudette Colbert, Tyrone Power, Jane Russell, Van Johnson, Ray Milland, movie producer Darryl Zanuck, and automobile mogul Henry Ford.

The better skiers were Lex Barker (Tarzan), Norma Shearer (The Divorcee), and Janet Leigh, the mother of Jamie Lee Curtis. Ann Sothern even wrote into her MGM contract that she was not available on the set during the winter. After skiing, the rich and famous danced in the Sun Valley Lodge to the music of Eddie Duchin, and drank with local resident Ernest Hemingway.

Sun Valley eerily anticipated the 21st Century’s celebration of celebrity . . .and took it to the bank. 

 

 

 

07/11/2013 - 5:26 PM
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Giant slalom was invented in Italy in 1935 —  the result of an accident of weather, according to a recent article in the magazineSciare.  It happened when a downhill race, scheduled to take place on January 19, 1935, in Mottarone, above Lake Maggiore in Piedmont, had to be modified because of lack of snow.

In place of the classic, open downhill of the time, the FISI (Italian Ski Federation) commissioner Gianni Albertini decided

Helmuth Lantschner at Kitzbuehel, 1939

to prepare a new course with gates, forcing the racers to follow a specific path down the mountain.  The vertical drop was quite small, 300 meters (a thousand feet), so he decided that the race should be in two runs.  The winner, Austria’s Helmuth Lantschner took two minutes thirty-one and one-fifth seconds. Giacinto Sertorelli, the Italian ace, was third, six seconds behind.

FISI was so satisfied with the new formula that they officially introduced the giant slalom race in the Italian championships at Cortina, February 12, 1935.  A course was prepared on the Olympia delle Tofane, 900 meters vertical drop, course setter, once again, Gianni Albertini.  Twenty-six male competitors started.  The race was won by Giacinto Sertorelli, in six-and-a-half minutes.  Six women competed.  The winner was Paula Wiesinger, in eight minutes 19.8 seconds.

A recent article in Skiing Heritage gave attention to the American contribution to the development of the GS —  a 1937 race at Mt. Washington. Yet it was the Italians who sponsored an annual—and international—race.  In 1936 there was one on a shortened course on the Marmolada, won  by Eberhardt Kneissl of Austria. Full 50-gate slaloms were won in 1937 by Josef Gstrein (AUT),  in 1939 by Vittorio Chierroni (ITA).  Women’s races took place in 1935 with Gabriella Dreher (ITA) winning, Elvira Osirnig (SUI) in 1936.

Aspen in 1950 marked the first FIS World Alpine Ski Championships to include giant slalom. The gold medal was won by Italy’s Zeno Colò, who also won the downhill and took a silver in slalom. From the FIS GS at Aspenonward the GS was a one-run race until the World Championships at Portillo,Chile, in August 1966 when the men raced two runs, the women still one run. Four years later at Val Gardena, Italy, women began to race two runs in world championship GS.

Matteo Pacor, who operates the superb racing results website www.ski-db.com, recalls his first experience of watching a two-run giant slalom during the Innsbruck Olympics in 1976, held over two days.  “I was ten years old and a huge fan of Ingemar Stenmark.  He skied badly in the first run.  I didn’t sleep well.”

(Matteo Pacor, John Allen and John Fry contributed to this article. Photo of Helmuth Lantschner shot in Kitzbuehel, 1939)

07/07/2012 - 12:00 AM
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