THERE ARE MANY EARLY VAILITES who have Vail’s history ingrained in their
memories, but nobody has the kind of inventory of photographs and video footage that Roger Cotton Brown has amassed in his Gypsum home. ¶ The footage comes in all forms — film reels, videotapes, slides, and of course, Brown’s own memory. ¶ Brown, an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, has been in Vail since its earliest days. He was always making films and documenting life in Vail, and it’s his footage and his filmmaking expertise behind the 50th anniversary film set to premiere sometime around the anniversary date of Dec. 15. ¶ That’s the day Vail opened in 1962 following a long summer in which the resort’s founders and investors made it all happen. Brown has footage from that summer of ’62, showing a valley that was once ranch land being transformed into a ski resort. That was the summer that made Vail. ¶ Brown is creating the 50th anniversary film along with partners Garrett Edquist and Vail Resorts videographer Satchele Burns, with some help from Brown’s Emmy Award-winning son, Nick Brown, a movie producer and director.
PHOTO BY DOMINIQUE TAYLOR
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