Seattle Now & Then: Seattle Municipal Ski Park, 1934

jrsherrard

1 year ago

(click to enlarge photos)

THEN1: The Seattle Ski Park’s dedication, Jan. 21, 1934. Hundreds of citizens took to the slopes, while a brass band played. For a more detailed account of opening day, ski historian John Lundin’s essays can be found at HistoryLink.org and at JohnWLundin.com. (Seattle Municipal Archives)

NOW1: Guy Lawrence, today’s Snoqualmie Pass general manager, poses mid-January at the foot of Municipal Hill, now a part of Summit West. Like farms, Lawrence says, ski facilities are at the mercy of the weather. With luck, a ski season can last 120 days at the pass. (Jean Sherrard)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Feb.20, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on Feb. 23, 2025

Seattle Ski Park of 1934 (at Snoqualmie Pass) was ‘close to heaven’

By Jean Sherrard

Every Saturday morning during bleak winter months in the late 1960s, when weather cooperated, my parents would drop me off at the parking lot of Bellevue Junior High School to catch a yellow school bus bound for Snoqualmie Pass and a day of skiing.

In the mountains, I joined hundreds of other students, learning to negotiate rope tows, chair lifts and snowy slopes until some measure of prowess and confidence bloomed. Though not a natural athlete, I discovered I was a passable skier.

By late afternoon, aching and weary, all of us student skiers boarded the buses home. We could hardly wait for the next Saturday.

I only recently discovered the early origins of the exuberant civic spirit that championed school and community participation on the ski slopes.

“In 1934, the Seattle Parks Department opened the first municipally owned ski facility in the country,” says ski historian John Lundin, author of “Early Skiing on Snoqualmie Pass.”

“Efforts were led by Seattle Mayor John F. Dore, a skier who envisioned the project as one that could lift his city’s spirits during the midst of the Great Depression.”

John Dore, Seattle mayor 1932-34 and 1936-38.

Ten acres of forest were cleared of trees by laborers provided by the U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps, who also added a “warming hut” for chilled skiers.

To prepare Seattleites for this unfamiliar recreation, Parks offered lessons to neophytes in the old Westlake Ice Rink. “The indoor school,” reported The Seattle Times, “is an innovation in ski training.”

At the indoor ski school at Westlake Ice Rink, instructors provided would-be skiers with “actual practice on skis of walking, sliding and various turns.”

The Seattle Ski Park opened Jan. 21, 1934. Though it was a drizzly Sunday, newly minted skiers, however, were scarcely discouraged. More than 1,000 turned up

to celebrate opening day, which featured the North End Community Band and Dore himself, who awarded a prize for the day’s best skier.

Mayor Dore awarded a prize for best skier

“This park is yours,” the mayor proclaimed. “We hope to expand it … and give you a ski instructor so that your children may learn to ski.”

Ski Lift, Inc. founder Chauncey Griggs demonstrating a new-fangled rope tow at Mount Rainier in 1938. With co-owner Jim Parker, Griggs also installed rope tows at Mount Baker and Snoqualmie Pass, where they employed Webb Moffett as operator. Entrepreneurial Moffett soon purchased Ski Lifts, Inc. which operated all ski areas in Snoqualmie Pass until 1998.

Hardy enthusiasm saved the day. Because the park’s snowy incline had no rope tows or lifts (the first wouldn’t be installed until 1938), every skier made the long climb up Municipal Hill on foot, rewarded with thrilling if brief downhill glides.

Webb Moffett, first rope tow operator at Snoqualmie Pass, and future owner of Ski Lift, Inc.

City Council skeptics questioned creating a city-run park 60 miles from Seattle limits. Most councilors pronounced “ski” with a long “I.” Commented a wag, “ ‘Sky’ Park is rather descriptive when you consider how close Snoqualmie Pass is to heaven.”