Following the stock market crash of October 1929, an economic malady gripped the United States and much of the world, lasting several years. Loss of employment created excessive hardships, limiting even basic necessities of life.
The President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had previously been the two-term Governor of New York State, developed a composite plan to help citizens cope with the financial disaster and provide jobs, commonly known as “The New Deal.”
The ambitious program was multi-faceted, with one face being the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) established in 1933, where young men were organized into military style labor, housed in barracks at remote locations.
These citizen troopers were under the direction of the US Army, and were deployed to cut fire-breaks through forests, build roads, plant trees on repossessed farms to stabilize precious topsoil and prevent erosion.
The unskilled labor of the C.C.C. also built fire ponds, erected fire towers, stocked fish, provided gypsy moth and white pine blister-rust control, engaged in fish and game projects, dug ditches and drains, improved stream beds and built irrigation systems.
The C.C.C.’s greatest and most lasting impact was developing a great many parks which have proved their value as public works projects over the succeeding decades.
The C.C.C. was staffed with young men, aged 18-25, recruited from families receiving relief. Their labor was exchanged for a small salary, most of which was mailed to their homes to provide for their families.
President Roosevelt’s plan for the redistribution of wealth to reduce massive inequalities was Economics-101 in practice. The C.C.C. assignments provided workers a strong background for their future labors, and also good hygienic and social habits in the austere conditions of new construction in undeveloped areas. An expression of the period describing work on the C.C.C. was: “what you got was three hots and a cot.”
Although a Federal program administered by the Army, the planning and direction for the use of C.C.C. forces came under each state’s conservation department.
CCC Built Ski Trails
The foresters in Vermont took the lead in C.C.C. ski center development with their establishment of Stowe on Mount Mansfield. Syracuse University graduate Perry Merrill (1894-1993) continued his education at the Royal College of Forestry in Stockholm, Sweden, where he became expert with both touring and alpine skiing, going on to also develop Vermont’s Burke Mountain, Jay and Killington.
The instant popularity of this 1933 effort at Stowe, which predated lift-served skiing, demonstrated to New York foresters what could be accomplished on similar terrain with the C.C.C. force in the Empire State.
Four ski areas were functioning across the United States prior to FDR’s 1933 inauguration; Howelsen Hill (Steamboat Springs, CO) became operational in 1915, Storrs Hill Ski Area (Lebanon, NH) in 1925, Cooper Spur Mountain Resort (Mt. Hood, OR) in 1927, and near the same location the Mt. Hood Skibowl in 1928. However, these facilities supported mostly ski jumping.
The 1932 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid featured four Nordic skiing events: a Normal Hill Ski Jumping competition, two Cross-Country Skiing races (18 km and 50 km), and a Nordic Combined event that included both ski jumping and cross-country skiing. Alpine skiing or downhill racing, was not included in the 1932 Games, being added in the subsequent 1936 Garmisch Games.
All other major US ski centers were not operational prior to FDR’s 1933 inauguration, which would suggest that a New Yorker who could no longer ski, is responsible for helping to ignite interest in American skiing.
Lithgow Osborne’s Conservation Department
New York’s forest managers quickly recognized the potential for creating ski trails and lodges. The man in charge in Albany was certainly interested in emulating the success already recognized across the border in the Green Mountain State. His name was Lithgow Osborne, who was the son of the famous prison reformer Thomas Mott Osborne of Auburn, New York.
Lithgow Osborne, who graduated Harvard with the Class of 1915, entered the diplomatic service with the US Embassy in Berlin, later serving as Vice-President of the family-owned Auburn Citizen daily newspaper. After unsuccessfully running for Congress in 1932, he was appointed NYS Conservation Commissioner by Governor Herbert Lehman in 1933, and held that post for 10 years.
Lithgow Osborne was a conservationist and sportsman, and expanded State-owned land and fishing streams. He inaugurated a program of farmer-sportsman cooperation, which opened many acres of agricultural land to hunting and fishing. He built many State campsites and was interested in constructing public ski trails.
The 1935 Conservation Department Annual Report to the Legislature mentions, “A typical trail, the Van Hoevenberg trail to Mt. Marcy, was selected for conversion into a ski trail in response to popular demand.” The same report mentions trails being added at Oneida County Reforestation Area #8 near Utica and at Allegany State Park.
The newspapers of the time referred to the C.C.C. as “Roosevelt’s Forest Army,” and the men themselves used the term “bush-bums,” to describe themselves and their peers.
In 1991 Marlys Rudeen compiled a guide to newspapers distributed at C.C.C. camps, and the titles of these publications tell quite a story of the comradery fostered there. Some of the titles were; Bugs & Blisters, Swamp Angel, Gipsy Mirth, This Dam Thing, Lost Nation Clarion, The Hilltopper, The Bug Hunter, Plow Jockey, The Wind Mill, Jive Timer, Bash Bish Bushwacker, Glen Snooper, The Highland Fling, Camp Rambler, and The Alps Yodler.
Skiing For the Masses
In their December 15, 1933 issue, Vogue was advising readers of the proper “colour” for your skiing suit, with the cautionary note, “right here and now, banish all thoughts of white in any quantity, for nothing can stand up against the dazzling snow and succeed in looking anything but dingy!”
In an effort to develop New York’s ski trails on a statewide basis, planning was done on a broad scale.
Downstate skiers only needed to travel north along the Hudson River to Palisades Interstate Park and Bear Mountain, or to Phoenicia in the Catskills to reach state facilities. In December of 1937 Conservation Commissioner Lithgow Osborne told the Schenectady Gazette that the new ski trails in Madison County at DeRuyter, and Cortland County at Vigil were being constructed, “as somewhat along experimental lines.”
As he reasoned “the opportunity for more trails is practically unlimited on reforestation areas. At the present time the department has under its jurisdiction nearly 400,000 acres of abandoned farm lands which are located in 32 counties throughout the state.”
In 1934 a new convenience was introduced with the Delaware & Hudson Railroad‘s “snow train,” transporting skiers and gear from Schenectady to “Old Gore Mounatin” in North Creek (now North Creek Ski Bowl) in Northern Warren County.
Under the pseudonym “Mr. Pennyfeather,” the February 1938 Utica Observer-Dispatch described ski areas, and skiing conditions across the Empire State. Mention is also made of the Utica Ski Club venturing to Colgate University to view a film, The Ski Chase, featuring instructor Hannes Schneider demonstrating his Arlberg Technique, or the basics of modern ski control, from the snowcaps of the Austrian Tyrol, in the heart of the European Alps where he operated a school.
Also described in that issue was the “Illion Minutemen,” an enthusiastic group of married-couple skiers who, “have come by this appellation especially during the last few weeks of poor snow conditions. If one member found a ski-able hill within 30 or 40 miles of Ilion, in Herkmier County, NY, word was phoned back and in no time at all the “Minutemen” would be arriving by the carload. Freezing or cold or rain seemed to have little effect on their enthusiasm.”
Promotion of skiing in New York leapt forward in 1939 with Conservation Commissioner Osborne announcing the publication of Ski Trails of New York State, and another Federal Project which returned people to work, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) produced Skiing in the East.
These and other efforts prompted The New York Times skiing reporter Frank Elkins to write in December of that year about New York State “keeping pace with the growing popularity of skiing.”
During World War II, many recreational activities were curtailed; for example no thoroughbred racing took place in Saratoga Springs 1943-45. This appears to have also affected the state operated ski areas and was noted in the Conservation Department’s 1942 Annual Report. Because of the war, the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) was disbanded in 1942, with their capital assets going to the military.
Certainly the America that went to war was not the country that returned from the conflict; much had changed. Disuse of numerous ski trails “for the duration” made many locations quiet and then forgotten.
The Administration had changed in New York State, and the needs and areas that received emphasis previously shifted with control of the Executive Mansion in Albany. With that significant post-war shift, operations of ski areas and trails mostly moved from public to private operation.
Foremost behind the remarkable growth and interest in popular skiing were the introduction and teaching of modern downhill skiing techniques. The paradigm shift in emphasis from ski jumping, which was mainly for spectators, to the more popular sport of downhill skiing, which was mainly for participants, advanced the sport.
Also, improved practical skiing equipment with lighter and more comfortable winter clothing made skiing more widely practiced. Yet the creation of dedicated areas and facilities, the opening up of suitable terrain, and the easier access for the public by the C.C.C. troopers along with that entity’s far-sighted creator, had got the ball rolling.
Very appropriate, as in Upstate New York we know the north wind doth blow, and we shall see snow.
Read more about winter sports in New York.
Illustrations, from above: New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt at Fort Onatrio on July 22, 1929 (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum); “The Spirit of the C.C.C.” sculpture, also known as “Iron Mike,” in Letchworth State Park at Castile, NY. The statute at Letchworth State Park is number 17 of 59 identical monuments across the United States, commemorating the more than three million workers nationwide during the Great Depression; Trail map of Lake Placid Area from Works Progress Administration (WPA) produced Skiing in the East, 1939; NYS Conservation Commissioner Lithgow Osborne (NYS Conservation Department Annual Report 1936); Old Silver Mine Ski Tow at Palisades Interstate Park (NYS Conservation Department Annual Report 1938); New York Times, January 25, 1936, article detailing the Ski Train and the availability of toggery to suit your taste and purse while aboard; Old Silver Mine Ski Tow at Palisades Interstate Park (NYS Conservation Department Annual Report 1938); and Old Silver Mine Ski Center (NYS Conservation Department Annual Report 1942).
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