CHAPTER
14
PARK CITY TURNS TO SKIING
I
.n 1950, if a person had asked a group of Park City residents to describe their town in the year 2000, it is unlikely that even those with the wildest imaginations could have come close to divining the future of their struggling little mining town. Vast resorts built on Treasure Mountain and on Otto Carpenter's old Snow Park ski hill, multimillion-dollar homes, burgeoning subdivisions, a five-lane highway sweeping into town: all of this would have been inconceivable then. But even in the 1950s, Parkites had an inkling of the resource they had in the twenty-five feet of snow that fell in the mountains every winter. In fact, although it's hard to tell how much of it was self-promotional puffery, the people of Park City have been singing the praises of their town as a winter resort for at least seventy years. Consider this item from the front page of the Park Record on 23 February 1923, on the occasion of a skiing tournament—Park City's first: Yesterday was a gala day for winter sports in Park City, and the first of annual events that will result in bringing many hun313
