They Bet Their Shirts on Skiing #3
By ED SCHENCK, as told to EDMUND CHRISTOPHERSON
That was Then…
(Reprinted from The Saturday Evening Post, March 4, 1950. This is the 3rd installment, continued from last week’s Ski Locker feature.)
By the eagerness of his question, and others, I realized they wanted a ski area, and they wanted it badly, and they wanted it right now. Mainly, I gathered, they wanted to know how they could make a St. Moritz out of Whitefish. In keeping with this trend of thought, I told them how we could build a big resort set up on the lake, with a four-mile-long aerial tram to take the skiers up to the mountain. Everyone liked that idea fine, but right away they wanted to know how much a project like that would cost. I told them that 3,000,000 bucks ought to do it.
From there on, the talk became a lot more realistic. We finally decided on a ski development that would cost an initial $70,000. George and I agreed to invest our $20,000 and develop the project ourselves if the chamber could raise the rest. They went out and got pledges for $40,000 worth of stocks. But pledges and contracts are two different things, we later discovered.
By this time the town was really steamed up about skiing. The atmosphere was almost like that when a religious revival is in town, with meetings every night, and folks talking about only one thing. For the next year, at least, there were meetings at least three times a week, plus Sundays, and George and I had to stay awake during all of them.
What did we talk about at all these meetings? An exceptional elephant couldn't remember half of it. We hashed over everything from incorporation to just how we'd get skiers. We had lots of problems, and we just had to stay with 'em until everyone was satisfied, especially since they hadn't actually put up the money yet.
For example, we must have spent fifteen meetings on the problem of what we'd name the corporation and the mountain. The local skiers used the name "Hell Roaring”, and at one meeting a motion was presented to name our outfit the Hell Roaring Ski Corporation. The next morning three important businessmen and potential investors told me that if that was what we were going to call the organization, they'd have no part of it. The Forest Service said there were already seven Hell Roaring Creeks in the region. Others thought it suggested that skiing was dangerous and would scare off businesses. So we took the quiet, noncontroversial name of Winter Sports, Inc., and called the hill we'd chosen The Big Mountain.
Winter Sports, Inc., was finally incorporated by the beginning of the summer of 1947. The chamber was selling stock, and everything seemed to be under control. Blithely we announced that we'd open that December nineteenth.
George is quieter and more reassuring than I am, so he was elected president of the corporation: Not wanting me to feel left out, they gave me the title of General Manager. These may sound like executive jobs, positions of authority, trust, and leisure, but during the next two years, we mostly worked as ditch diggers, brush cutters, tractor drivers, riggers, and road builders, as well as designers, engineers, promoters and after-dinner speakers. Filling these jobs, we worked what seemed like an average of twenty hours a day. Although George got home to sleep on the nights when we stopped working, his daughter Jan saw him so seldom that she would go up to any man she saw in the street, shouting, "Daddy!" Phyl, his wife, felt so neglected that at least twice be found her packed up and ready to leave.
As for making a fortune, it’s been lucky that a doctor, a butcher, and a couple of grocers in town were enough taken by the ski bug to carry us on the cuff. (To be continued next week.)
This is Now…
Make plans to enjoy Hellroaring Ski Heritage Days, March 17 – 18!
Friday, March 17 • 6:00 PM
O’Shaughnessy Center
Ski Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Reception
Featuring Canadian Olympic Medalist “Jungle” Jim Hunter - the original “Crazy Canuck”
Tickets $35 on sale March 1st, Glacier Bank - Downtown Whitefish & Kalispell, or online at fvsef.org.
Saturday, March 18 • All Day
Whitefish Mountain Resort
Cash Prizes for all Events
Ski-a-Thon
Retro-Race
Team Uphill/Downhill Classic
Best Vintage Outfit Contest
