Ski Lift No. 1
Encyclopedia
The former Ski Lift No. 1 begins on Aspen Street in Aspen
, Colorado, United States, and climbs up the slopes of Aspen Mountain
. It was built in the late 1940s on the site of Aspen
's first ski lift
, known as the Boat Tow. In 1990 it was listed under that name on the National Register of Historic Places
, one of only two ski lifts in the country so recognized.The other is the Proctor Mountain Ski Lift at Sun Valley
.
It was originally built with motors and other equipment left over from Aspen's days as a silver mining center in the late 19th century. The development of the ski area
that began with the lift began the revival of Aspen into the upscale resort town it has since become, which in turn helped establish downhill skiing
as a major winter recreational activity in the Western United States
after the war.
When the current structure was opened, Aspen claimed it was the longest ski lift in the world. It was closed in 1971, but all its facilities remain on the mountain. It is one of the few remaining single-chair chairlift
s in the United States. A small park and commemorative plaque
have been established at the bottom station. One of the original boats was on display there as well, but has since been removed.
-style houses and condominium
s. The area leading to South Aspen is open, with a small concrete area where one of the first lift boats was displayed in the past. Opposite the lift station is an unpaved parking lot.
The station itself is an L-shaped steel latticework structure with the long end running parallel to the ground for 30 feet (10 m) at a height of 10 feet (3 m). In the middle a substructure below supports the wide bullwheel
around which the lift cable is looped. It drew its energy from another pulley system connected to the engine formerly in the 20-foot-high (6 m) short section, based below the lift's grade.
Along the cable single metal chairs hang at regular intervals. The cable, supported by 49 towers, climbs to its top station on a false summit between Spar and Keno gulches, approximately 10480 feet (3,194.3 m) in elevation, 2540 feet (774.2 m) above the base.
, has been documented in what is today Colorado since at least 1857. Residents of the isolated mining towns in the high Rocky Mountains
found them absolutely necessary to get around during the severe mountain winters, occasionally holding informal races and competitions to pass the time. Aspen's earliest settlers, in 1879, learned to make and use such skis, often referred to at the time as "Norwegian snowshoes", from two Swedish immigrants
among their number, helping them survive a winter in which the snowfall totaled 52 feet (15.8 m).
In the Colorado Silver Boom
years of the 1880s, when Aspen was growing at a fantastic rate, miners working midway up the mountain from the town had, in the winter months, developed a method of riding long boards over the snow down the mountain, with a long metal pole between the legs attaching to the rear and used as a brake. It was a forerunner of skiing, used solely to speed their descent to the city's after-hours attractions, although they would sometimes race each other for fun. After the Sherman Silver Purchase Act
was repealed during the Panic of 1893
, the collapse of that market led to decades of slow decline, a period referred to today in histories of Aspen as "the quiet years".
In the early 1930s Alpine skiing
came to the mountains of Colorado. The Arlburg club, a group of Denverites who had been introduced to the sport on visits to Europe, cut the state's first ski trail near Denver in what is now Winter Park
. The next year the second U.S. national downhill ski championships were held at Estes Park
.
and Ted Ryan, an heir of Thomas Fortune Ryan
, had been looking for somewhere in America where a ski resort similar to those in Europe could be established. That summer, an Aspen man trying to sell some mining claims to Ryan showed him pictures of the area. Ryan saw good ski terrain in the photos and went to the remote mountain town with Fiske.
Frank and Fred Willoughby, sons of another Aspen miner, took the two up the mountain. Before leaving, Fiske bought an option on some property in the area. He and Ryan later had blueprints drawn up for a ski lodge, the Highland Bavarian, and by the end of the year it was under construction. Over the winter it offered guided mountain ski tours.
One of the first two guides hired was Swiss skiing champion André Roch
, then studying at Reed College
in Oregon. He became close friends with the Willoughbys while living at the Hotel Jerome
he and fellow guide Gunther Langes waited for the lodge to be completed. By that time Aspen's population had dwindled into the hundreds. Many of its remaining buildings had fallen into disrepair and been boarded up. Roch noted that they could be purchased for as little as $30 ($ in contemporary dollars.) Roch helped start the Roaring Fork
Winter Sports Club, an organization similar to the ones in his native country, at the end of the year. Frank Willoughby was elected president, and Roch taught him and his brother how to ski. These events are today considered the beginning of skiing in Aspen.
The lodge opened two days after Christmas and five days after a similar facility at Sun Valley, Idaho
, making Aspen the second European-style ski resort in the U.S. There were more than a hundred visitors that winter. Before he returned to Switzerland that spring, Roch had scouted and marked out a challenging ski route, explaining to the club that it would help Aspen attract major ski races and the tourism that would follow. Willoughby led the club in clearing and marking it that year. When winter came, the city's Lions Club raised $600 to build the first lift.
That lift was the Boat Tow, based on a similar device Ryan had seen on a trip to Kitzbühel
in Austria. Two hoists were salvaged from an abandoned mine and powered with an old Model A engine. It was opened early in 1938. Skiers who endured the ride up in the 12 by four-seat wooden sleds were able to ski one of the steepest and narrowest trails in North America
. Many had made the difficult and lengthy drive from Denver for the opportunity. The city soon began hosting the annual Southern Rocky Mountain Alpine Championships, which brought more people, including radio personality Lowell Thomas
, into Aspen at one time than had been there since the mining days.
Further development of Aspen's skiing facilities was stalled by U.S. entry into World War II
at the end of 1941. During the war years, new members of the Army's Tenth Mountain Division trained at Camp Hale
outside Leadville
, on the other side of the Continental Divide
from Aspen, and passed through the city during their training in skiing, mountaineering and winter warfare. One instructor, Friedl Pfeifer, was convinced as soon as he saw it that Aspen could be the American equal of Sankt Anton am Arlberg, the Tyrolean resort town in which he had grown up. After the war he and other veterans of the Tenth returned and resumed the work of developing the ski area.
More lodges were built and more trails cleared. Pfeifer founded the Aspen ski school, where other veterans of the Tenth found work as instructors. Walter Paepcke
, a Chicago businessman who chanced through Aspen on a vacation, saw the potential and began devoting time and money to the new Aspen Skiing Company
to realize it.
s had been developed at Sun Valley before the war, and were in use near Aspen at the now-defunct Red Mountain ski area in Glenwood Springs
. In 1946 Oregon's Hoodoo
opened the first double chair. Pfeifer planned two chairs, a long one from the base to the false summit, and Ski Lift No. 2, a second chair to the 11212 feet (3,417.4 m) summit of the mountain itself, where a lodge known as the Sundeck, designed by Bauhaus
member architect Herbert Bayer
, was built.
Building the lift cost $250,000 ($ in contemporary dollars). Most labor was locally sourced. Frank Willoughby used a bulldozer to widen fire roads up the mountain. Bob Heron, a Denver engineer who had designed the portable combat lift used by the Tenth in its 1945 assault on Riva Ridge in northern Italy, came up with a similar design for the lifts that cannibalized
abandoned mining hoists on the mountain. It was erected by American Steel and Wire
, which had built the Sun Valley chairlifts. When the lift was finished late in 1946, Pfeifer and his young daughter were given the honor of the first ride on one of the 124 single chairs.
Its significance for the faded mining town was immediately recognized. For Aspen, a columnist for the local newspaper
wrote, it meant "a new, good, and profitable way of life ... We in Aspen are now carrying the ball." Residents proclaimed that Lift No. 1 was the longest chairlift in the world, regardless of the competing claim made by Sun Valley.
The lift's formal opening was held January 11, 1947. Governor-elect William Lee Knous
, U.S. Senator Edwin C. Johnson
and other dignitaries came via a special excursion train
from Denver. After giving a short speech under a sign reiterating the claim that the lift was the world's longest, Knous, flanked by Paepcke and Aspen's mayor, symbolically christened
the lift by breaking a bottle of champagne over one of the chairs. An estimated crowd of 2,000 stayed to see a parade, fireworks and ski jumping
demonstrations. The ceremony and the day are considered to have finally ended Aspen's "quiet years" between its mining boomtown
beginnings and its current cachet as an upscale all-season resort popular with the rich and famous.
A year later the lift was featured in a Popular Mechanics
cover story as an engineering marvel. As its builders had hoped, it spurred the development of the ski area. Over the next two decades the surrounding blocks were rapidly developed with lodges and chalets. New lifts were built, and at the end of the 1971 season Ski Lift No. 1 was closed.
It was replaced by a new double chair, Lift 1A, which was also based nearby. Lift 1A only went half the distance its predecessor had, requiring a second lift change to get to the top of the mountain, and eventually it was removed and replaced after Aspen built a gondola
all the way to the summit from a new base station several blocks to the east. In 1999 the trees and shrubs that had grown in around Lift 1's base station were replaced to reveal the original structure.
It is one of four extant single-chair lifts in the United States.Aspen's is the only one no longer in use. The other two, besides Sun Valley, are one of Sun Valley's former lifts at Alaska's Mt. Eyak
, and at Mad River Glen
in Vermont, where the original lift was modernized in the late 2000s. The area in front of the lift's bottom station has been named Willoughby Park after Frank Willoughby, and for a while one of the original lift boats was on display. A commemorative plaque
has been affixed to the bottom station. The Aspen Historical Society has proposed a skiing museum in the area, possibly including some of the surrounding buildings and the lift itself.
any clothing stained by those drippings; Obermeyer says it had to do a lot of dry cleaning.
Occasionally a dog rode up the chair. According to Obermeyer, Bingo, a St. Bernard
belonging to another instructor, Fred Iselin, often climbed the mountain to join his master and the other instructors for lunch. Sometimes the lift operators let Bingo ride up instead.
Aspen, Colorado
The City of Aspen is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 5,804 in 2005...
, Colorado, United States, and climbs up the slopes of Aspen Mountain
Aspen Mountain (Colorado)
Aspen Mountain is a mountain in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in the United States. One of the foothills of the Elk Mountains, it is located just south of the town of Aspen, which is situated at the foot of the mountain at the southeast end of the valley of the Roaring Fork River in Pitkin County...
. It was built in the late 1940s on the site of Aspen
Aspen Mountain (ski area)
Aspen Mountain is a ski area located in Pitkin County, Colorado, just outside and above the city of Aspen. It is situated on the north flank of Aspen Mountain and the higher Bell Mountain at an elevation of 11,212 ft just to the south of Aspen Mountain...
's first ski lift
Ski lift
The term ski lift generally refers to any transport device that carries skiers up a hill. A ski lift may fall into one of the following three main classes:-Lift systems and networks:...
, known as the Boat Tow. In 1990 it was listed under that name on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
, one of only two ski lifts in the country so recognized.The other is the Proctor Mountain Ski Lift at Sun Valley
Sun Valley, Idaho
Sun Valley is a resort city in Blaine County in the central part of the U.S. state of Idaho, adjacent to the city of Ketchum, lying within the greater Wood River valley. Tourists from around the world enjoy its skiing, hiking, ice skating, trail riding, tennis, and cycling. The population was 1,427...
.
It was originally built with motors and other equipment left over from Aspen's days as a silver mining center in the late 19th century. The development of the ski area
Aspen Mountain (ski area)
Aspen Mountain is a ski area located in Pitkin County, Colorado, just outside and above the city of Aspen. It is situated on the north flank of Aspen Mountain and the higher Bell Mountain at an elevation of 11,212 ft just to the south of Aspen Mountain...
that began with the lift began the revival of Aspen into the upscale resort town it has since become, which in turn helped establish downhill skiing
Alpine skiing
Alpine skiing is the sport of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. Alpine skiing can be contrasted with skiing using free-heel bindings: Ski mountaineering and nordic skiing – such as cross-country; ski jumping; and Telemark. In competitive alpine skiing races four...
as a major winter recreational activity in the Western United States
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
after the war.
When the current structure was opened, Aspen claimed it was the longest ski lift in the world. It was closed in 1971, but all its facilities remain on the mountain. It is one of the few remaining single-chair chairlift
Chairlift
An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel cable loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs...
s in the United States. A small park and commemorative plaque
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...
have been established at the bottom station. One of the original boats was on display there as well, but has since been removed.
Structure
The bottom station of the 6800 feet (2.1 km) lift is located on the east side of South Aspen Street between East Dean Court and Gilbert Street. It is on a small level rise in an area which otherwise gradually slopes up to the base of the mountain. Around it on the block are chaletChalet
A chalet , also called Swiss chalet, is a type of building or house, native to the Alpine region, made of wood, with a heavy, gently sloping roof with wide, well-supported eaves set at right angles to the front of the house.-Definition and origin:...
-style houses and condominium
Condominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
s. The area leading to South Aspen is open, with a small concrete area where one of the first lift boats was displayed in the past. Opposite the lift station is an unpaved parking lot.
The station itself is an L-shaped steel latticework structure with the long end running parallel to the ground for 30 feet (10 m) at a height of 10 feet (3 m). In the middle a substructure below supports the wide bullwheel
Bullwheel
A bullwheel is a large wheel on which a rope turns, such as in a chairlift. In that application, the bullwheel that is attached to the prime mover is called the drive bullwheel, with the other known as the return bullwheel....
around which the lift cable is looped. It drew its energy from another pulley system connected to the engine formerly in the 20-foot-high (6 m) short section, based below the lift's grade.
Along the cable single metal chairs hang at regular intervals. The cable, supported by 49 towers, climbs to its top station on a false summit between Spar and Keno gulches, approximately 10480 feet (3,194.3 m) in elevation, 2540 feet (774.2 m) above the base.
History
The history of Ski Lift No. 1 is, in its early stages, intertwined with the history of skiing in Colorado and Aspen's founding as a mining town. The construction and opening of the lift in 1947 were a major turning point in both the history of the city and the development of recreational skiing in the United States.1857–1935: Skiing in Colorado
The use of skis for foot transportation, today referred to as Nordic skiingNordic skiing
Nordic skiing is a winter sport that encompasses all types of skiing where the heel of the boot cannot be fixed to the ski, as opposed to Alpine skiing....
, has been documented in what is today Colorado since at least 1857. Residents of the isolated mining towns in the high Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
found them absolutely necessary to get around during the severe mountain winters, occasionally holding informal races and competitions to pass the time. Aspen's earliest settlers, in 1879, learned to make and use such skis, often referred to at the time as "Norwegian snowshoes", from two Swedish immigrants
Swedish American
Swedish Americans are Americans of Swedish descent, especially the descendants of about 1.2 million immigrants from Sweden during 1885-1915. Most were Lutherans who affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ; some were Methodists...
among their number, helping them survive a winter in which the snowfall totaled 52 feet (15.8 m).
In the Colorado Silver Boom
Colorado Silver Boom
The Colorado Silver Boom was a dramatic expansionist period of silver mining activity in the U.S. state of Colorado in the late 19th century. The boom started in 1879 with the discovery of silver at Leadville...
years of the 1880s, when Aspen was growing at a fantastic rate, miners working midway up the mountain from the town had, in the winter months, developed a method of riding long boards over the snow down the mountain, with a long metal pole between the legs attaching to the rear and used as a brake. It was a forerunner of skiing, used solely to speed their descent to the city's after-hours attractions, although they would sometimes race each other for fun. After the Sherman Silver Purchase Act
Sherman Silver Purchase Act
The Sherman Silver Purchase Act was enacted on July 14, 1890 as a United States federal law. It was named after its author, Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee...
was repealed during the Panic of 1893
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...
, the collapse of that market led to decades of slow decline, a period referred to today in histories of Aspen as "the quiet years".
In the early 1930s Alpine skiing
Alpine skiing
Alpine skiing is the sport of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. Alpine skiing can be contrasted with skiing using free-heel bindings: Ski mountaineering and nordic skiing – such as cross-country; ski jumping; and Telemark. In competitive alpine skiing races four...
came to the mountains of Colorado. The Arlburg club, a group of Denverites who had been introduced to the sport on visits to Europe, cut the state's first ski trail near Denver in what is now Winter Park
Winter Park Resort
Winter Park Resort is an alpine ski resort in Winter Park, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. Located just off U.S. Highway 40, the resort is about an hour and a half's drive from Denver, Colorado....
. The next year the second U.S. national downhill ski championships were held at Estes Park
Estes Park, Colorado
Estes Park is a town in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. A popular summer resort and the location of the headquarters for Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park lies along the Big Thompson River. Estes Park had a population of 5,858 at the 2010 census...
.
1936–45: Early development of skiing in Aspen
Two years after that, 1936, skiing came to Aspen. Bobsledder Billy FiskeBilly Fiske
William Meade Lindsley "Billy" Fiske III was the 1928 and 1932 Olympic champion bobsled driver and, following Jimmy Davies, was one of the first American pilots killed in action in World War II...
and Ted Ryan, an heir of Thomas Fortune Ryan
Thomas Fortune Ryan
Thomas Fortune Ryan was a U.S. tobacco and transport magnate. Part of his fortune paid for the construction of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, Virginia.-Early days:...
, had been looking for somewhere in America where a ski resort similar to those in Europe could be established. That summer, an Aspen man trying to sell some mining claims to Ryan showed him pictures of the area. Ryan saw good ski terrain in the photos and went to the remote mountain town with Fiske.
Frank and Fred Willoughby, sons of another Aspen miner, took the two up the mountain. Before leaving, Fiske bought an option on some property in the area. He and Ryan later had blueprints drawn up for a ski lodge, the Highland Bavarian, and by the end of the year it was under construction. Over the winter it offered guided mountain ski tours.
One of the first two guides hired was Swiss skiing champion André Roch
André Roch
André Roch, , was a mountaineer, avalanche expert, skier, resort developer, engineer, and author...
, then studying at Reed College
Reed College
Reed College is a private, independent, liberal arts college located in southeast Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus located in Portland's Eastmoreland neighborhood, featuring architecture based on the Tudor-Gothic style, and a forested canyon wilderness...
in Oregon. He became close friends with the Willoughbys while living at the Hotel Jerome
Hotel Jerome
The Hotel Jerome is located on East Main Street in Aspen, Colorado, United States. It is a brick structure built in the 1880s that is often described as one of the city's major landmarks, its "crown jewel". In 1986 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places...
he and fellow guide Gunther Langes waited for the lodge to be completed. By that time Aspen's population had dwindled into the hundreds. Many of its remaining buildings had fallen into disrepair and been boarded up. Roch noted that they could be purchased for as little as $30 ($ in contemporary dollars.) Roch helped start the Roaring Fork
Roaring Fork
Roaring Fork may refer to:* Roaring Fork River — a river in west central Colorado* Roaring Fork — a stream and National Historic District in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park of East Tennessee...
Winter Sports Club, an organization similar to the ones in his native country, at the end of the year. Frank Willoughby was elected president, and Roch taught him and his brother how to ski. These events are today considered the beginning of skiing in Aspen.
The lodge opened two days after Christmas and five days after a similar facility at Sun Valley, Idaho
Sun Valley, Idaho
Sun Valley is a resort city in Blaine County in the central part of the U.S. state of Idaho, adjacent to the city of Ketchum, lying within the greater Wood River valley. Tourists from around the world enjoy its skiing, hiking, ice skating, trail riding, tennis, and cycling. The population was 1,427...
, making Aspen the second European-style ski resort in the U.S. There were more than a hundred visitors that winter. Before he returned to Switzerland that spring, Roch had scouted and marked out a challenging ski route, explaining to the club that it would help Aspen attract major ski races and the tourism that would follow. Willoughby led the club in clearing and marking it that year. When winter came, the city's Lions Club raised $600 to build the first lift.
That lift was the Boat Tow, based on a similar device Ryan had seen on a trip to Kitzbühel
Kitzbühel
-Demographic evolution:-Personalities:*Karl Wilhelm von Dalla Torre , entomologist and botanist*Alfons Walde , expressionist painter and architect*Peter Aufschnaiter , mountaineer and geographer...
in Austria. Two hoists were salvaged from an abandoned mine and powered with an old Model A engine. It was opened early in 1938. Skiers who endured the ride up in the 12 by four-seat wooden sleds were able to ski one of the steepest and narrowest trails in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. Many had made the difficult and lengthy drive from Denver for the opportunity. The city soon began hosting the annual Southern Rocky Mountain Alpine Championships, which brought more people, including radio personality Lowell Thomas
Lowell Thomas
Lowell Jackson Thomas was an American writer, broadcaster, and traveler, best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia famous...
, into Aspen at one time than had been there since the mining days.
Further development of Aspen's skiing facilities was stalled by U.S. entry into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
at the end of 1941. During the war years, new members of the Army's Tenth Mountain Division trained at Camp Hale
Camp Hale
Camp Hale, between Red Cliff and Leadville in the Eagle River valley in Colorado, was a U.S. Army training facility constructed in 1942 for what became the 10th Mountain Division. It was named for General Irving Hale....
outside Leadville
Leadville, Colorado
Leadville is a Statutory City that is the county seat of, and the only municipality in, Lake County, Colorado, United States. Situated at an elevation of , Leadville is the highest incorporated city and the second highest incorporated municipality in the United States...
, on the other side of the Continental Divide
Continental Divide
The Continental Divide of the Americas, or merely the Continental Gulf of Division or Great Divide, is the name given to the principal, and largely mountainous, hydrological divide of the Americas that separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from those river systems that drain...
from Aspen, and passed through the city during their training in skiing, mountaineering and winter warfare. One instructor, Friedl Pfeifer, was convinced as soon as he saw it that Aspen could be the American equal of Sankt Anton am Arlberg, the Tyrolean resort town in which he had grown up. After the war he and other veterans of the Tenth returned and resumed the work of developing the ski area.
More lodges were built and more trails cleared. Pfeifer founded the Aspen ski school, where other veterans of the Tenth found work as instructors. Walter Paepcke
Walter Paepcke
Walter Paepcke was a U.S. industrialist and philanthropist prominent in the middle-20th century.-Biography:A longtime executive of the Chicago-based Container Corporation of America, Paepcke is best noted for his founding of the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Skiing Company in the early 1950s, both...
, a Chicago businessman who chanced through Aspen on a vacation, saw the potential and began devoting time and money to the new Aspen Skiing Company
Aspen Skiing Company
The Aspen Skiing Company, known locally as "Ski Co", is a commercial enterprise based in Aspen, Colorado in the United States.-History:Founded in 1946 by Walter Paepcke, it operates the Aspen/Snowmass resort complex, comprising four ski areas near the town of Aspen...
to realize it.
1946–present: Transformation of Aspen
Everyone agreed that Aspen needed a better lift, one that went all the way to the top, to become a serious resort. Frank Willoughby surveyed a route in 1945. ChairliftChairlift
An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel cable loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs...
s had been developed at Sun Valley before the war, and were in use near Aspen at the now-defunct Red Mountain ski area in Glenwood Springs
Glenwood Springs, Colorado
The City of Glenwood Springs is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Garfield County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimated that the city population was 8,564 in 2005...
. In 1946 Oregon's Hoodoo
Hoodoo (ski area)
Hoodoo Ski Area is a ski resort operated near the summit of Santiam Pass on U.S. Route 20, in the Cascade Range. Hoodoo is operated on federal land through agreement with the Willamette National Forests McKenzie River ranger district...
opened the first double chair. Pfeifer planned two chairs, a long one from the base to the false summit, and Ski Lift No. 2, a second chair to the 11212 feet (3,417.4 m) summit of the mountain itself, where a lodge known as the Sundeck, designed by Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
member architect Herbert Bayer
Herbert Bayer
Herbert Bayer was an Austrian American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental & interior designer, and architect, who was widely recognized as the last living member of the Bauhaus and was instrumental in the development of the Atlantic Richfield Company's...
, was built.
Building the lift cost $250,000 ($ in contemporary dollars). Most labor was locally sourced. Frank Willoughby used a bulldozer to widen fire roads up the mountain. Bob Heron, a Denver engineer who had designed the portable combat lift used by the Tenth in its 1945 assault on Riva Ridge in northern Italy, came up with a similar design for the lifts that cannibalized
Cannibalization of machine parts
Cannibalization of machine parts, in maintenance of mechanical or electronic systems with interchangeable parts, refers to the practice of removing parts or subsystems necessary for repair from another similar device, rather than from inventory, usually when resources become limited...
abandoned mining hoists on the mountain. It was erected by American Steel and Wire
AK Steel Holding
AK Steel Corporation is an American steel company whose predecessor, Armco, was founded in 1899 in Middletown, Ohio. Today, the company's corporate headquarters is situated in West Chester, Ohio, after having moved from Middletown, Ohio, in August 2007.- Products :AK Steel's main products are...
, which had built the Sun Valley chairlifts. When the lift was finished late in 1946, Pfeifer and his young daughter were given the honor of the first ride on one of the 124 single chairs.
Its significance for the faded mining town was immediately recognized. For Aspen, a columnist for the local newspaper
Aspen Times
The Aspen Times is an 11,500-circulation, 7-day-a-week newspaper in the ski resort of Aspen, Colorado with a history dating back to 1881.-History:...
wrote, it meant "a new, good, and profitable way of life ... We in Aspen are now carrying the ball." Residents proclaimed that Lift No. 1 was the longest chairlift in the world, regardless of the competing claim made by Sun Valley.
The lift's formal opening was held January 11, 1947. Governor-elect William Lee Knous
William Lee Knous
William Lee Knous was a Colorado Democratic state legislator, state Supreme Court justice and the 31st Governor of Colorado, and a U.S. district judge....
, U.S. Senator Edwin C. Johnson
Edwin C. Johnson
Edwin Carl Johnson was a Democratic Party politician who served as Governor of the state of Colorado.-Background:...
and other dignitaries came via a special excursion train
Excursion train
An excursion train is a chartered train run for a special event or purpose.Examples of excursion trains:* A train to a major sporting event* A train run for railfans or tourism...
from Denver. After giving a short speech under a sign reiterating the claim that the lift was the world's longest, Knous, flanked by Paepcke and Aspen's mayor, symbolically christened
Ship naming and launching
The ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.-Methods of launch:There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching." The oldest, most familiar, and most widely...
the lift by breaking a bottle of champagne over one of the chairs. An estimated crowd of 2,000 stayed to see a parade, fireworks and ski jumping
Ski jumping
Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down a take-off ramp, jump and attempt to land as far as possible down the hill below. In addition to the length of the jump, judges give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long...
demonstrations. The ceremony and the day are considered to have finally ended Aspen's "quiet years" between its mining boomtown
Boomtown
A boomtown is a community that experiences sudden and rapid population and economic growth. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although the term can also be applied to communities growing very rapidly for different reasons,...
beginnings and its current cachet as an upscale all-season resort popular with the rich and famous.
A year later the lift was featured in a Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics
Popular Mechanics is an American magazine first published January 11, 1902 by H. H. Windsor, and has been owned since 1958 by the Hearst Corporation...
cover story as an engineering marvel. As its builders had hoped, it spurred the development of the ski area. Over the next two decades the surrounding blocks were rapidly developed with lodges and chalets. New lifts were built, and at the end of the 1971 season Ski Lift No. 1 was closed.
It was replaced by a new double chair, Lift 1A, which was also based nearby. Lift 1A only went half the distance its predecessor had, requiring a second lift change to get to the top of the mountain, and eventually it was removed and replaced after Aspen built a gondola
Gondola lift
A gondola lift is a type of aerial lift, normally called a cable car, which is supported and propelled by cables from above. It consists of a loop of steel cable that is strung between two stations, sometimes over intermediate supporting towers. The cable is driven by a bullwheel in a terminal,...
all the way to the summit from a new base station several blocks to the east. In 1999 the trees and shrubs that had grown in around Lift 1's base station were replaced to reveal the original structure.
It is one of four extant single-chair lifts in the United States.Aspen's is the only one no longer in use. The other two, besides Sun Valley, are one of Sun Valley's former lifts at Alaska's Mt. Eyak
Mount Eyak
Mount Eyak is a ski area located in Cordova, Alaska. It is operated by the Sheridan Ski Club.-History:In 1948, the Sheridan Ski Club was started and local skiers set up a rope tow near the present-day Mews Apartments. The club even had a lighted hill for nighttime skiing.The next improvement came...
, and at Mad River Glen
Mad River Glen
Mad River Glen is a ski area in Fayston, Vermont. Its terrain has been ranked by SKI magazine as the most challenging on the east coast of the United States. Located within the Green Mountain range, it sits in the Mad River Valley, close to the larger Sugarbush Resort...
in Vermont, where the original lift was modernized in the late 2000s. The area in front of the lift's bottom station has been named Willoughby Park after Frank Willoughby, and for a while one of the original lift boats was on display. A commemorative plaque
Commemorative plaque
A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, typically attached to a wall, stone, or other vertical surface, and bearing text in memory of an important figure or event...
has been affixed to the bottom station. The Aspen Historical Society has proposed a skiing museum in the area, possibly including some of the surrounding buildings and the lift itself.
Operation
The ride to the base of Lift No. 2 took, former instructor Klaus Obermeyer recalls, a half hour if it was uninterrupted, which frequently it was not. A local journalist recalls singing "Nearer My God to Thee" on the way up to kill the time. Blankets were attached to the chairs to keep skiers warm; many nevertheless stopped in the warming hut at the top station before continuing to the summit. Lift No. 2 was less stringently designed and the wheels the cables ran through were right above passengers, often dripping oil and grease on them. The resort promised passengers it would dry cleanDry cleaning
Dry cleaning is any cleaning process for clothing and textiles using a chemical solvent other than water. The solvent used is typically tetrachloroethylene , abbreviated "perc" in the industry and "dry-cleaning fluid" by the public...
any clothing stained by those drippings; Obermeyer says it had to do a lot of dry cleaning.
Occasionally a dog rode up the chair. According to Obermeyer, Bingo, a St. Bernard
St. Bernard (dog)
The St. Bernard is a breed of very large working dog from the Italian and Swiss Alps, originally bred for rescue. The breed has become famous through tales of alpine rescues, as well as for its large size.-Appearance:The St. Bernard is a large dog...
belonging to another instructor, Fred Iselin, often climbed the mountain to join his master and the other instructors for lunch. Sometimes the lift operators let Bingo ride up instead.