HISTORY
By Pamela Kleibrink Thompson Bowling proprietors are converting their centers into BECs, realizing that customers want a variety of activities in addition to bowling. More than 80 years ago, W. Averell Harriman, visionary chairman of the board of the Union Pacific Railroad, created a winter resort that offered not just skiing, but bowling, swimming in a heated outdoor pool, tennis, golf, fishing, shooting, iceskating, and more, a precursor to many BECs and FECs of today. Here is the story of the important part bowling played in the development of America’s first destination ski resort. In a foreword to the book, Sun Valley, a Biography, by Doug Oppenheimer and Jim Poore (published by Beatty Books, Boise, ID, 1976), W. Averell Harriman describes the history behind the founding of ski resort Sun Valley, ID.
W.
Averell Harriman had a monopoly on rail transportation in Idaho and wanted to increase Union Pacific’s passenger service in the West. The competing Santa Fe Railroad was offering passenger service to the Grand Canyon. When Harriman discovered his banking colleagues were vacationing at ski resorts in Europe, he wondered why couldn’t skiing be popular in America too? He decided to create a destination people would want to travel to on the Union Pacific. “I thought we’d make an asset out of a liability-the snow... I thought we could start a new industry in the West,” said Harriman. In America in 1935, skiing was fairly unknown and confined to New England’s icy trails, where gloomy skies and sub zero temperatures made it hard to promote the sport, but if Harriman and his Union Pacific line could bring passengers to a blue sky, sun-kissed ski resort, he could outshine his competitors. 50
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W. Averell Harriman, chairman of the board of the Union Pacific Railroad, founded Sun Valley. Harriman skiing shortly after Sun Valley's opening in 1936 on Dollar Mountain. Photo courtesy of Sun Valley Resort.
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HISTORY ...continued from page 50
“I had skied as a boy at school, but I’d never done any real skiing,” admitted Harriman. He needed to find someone to help him find the right spot – it had to be near the rail line with dry powder, sunshine, and no wind or storms. “I employed Count Felix Schaffgotsch, a friend of mine who was well versed in European winter resorts, to search for the ideal area for a similar American resort.” Beginning in October 1935, Schaffgotsch traveled to Wyoming, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, California, and Idaho searching for America’s St. Moritz. “I received from Felix discouraging reports week after week from his explorations,” noted Harriman. Schaffgotsch liked Jackson Hole, but the state of Wyoming would not agree to keep the Teton Pass open in winter, which was necessary because the nearest rail line was in Victor, Idaho. One of Schaffgotsch’s escorts was Union Pacific area representative, 46-year-old Boise, ID, resident William J. Hynes, special agent in charge of freight and passenger service. As Felix Schaffgotsch boarded the train to Denver, preparing himself to inform Harriman that there was no ideal spot for the ski resort, he told Hynes, “If you find anything, let me know. Wire me at the Brown Palace in Denver.” Back in Boise, Hynes went to the Locker Club and drank a scotch and soda with Joseph Stemmer, director of highways for Idaho. He told Stemmer about his travels with Count Schaffgotsch and Stemmer said, “Did you look in the Hailey and Ketchum area?” “By God, no, I A shiny, yellow, sleek streamliner passenger train called The City of forgot,” Hynes remembered. Los Angeles made its maiden voyage from Grand Central Station in He immediately wired New York to Sun Valley. After transporting skiiers from New York Schaffgotsch, urging him to City to Sun Valley, its regular run would be from Chicago to LA. return to Idaho for one last Union Pacific Photograph. look. Count Schaffgotsch first viewed the Sawtooth Mountains in late January. Harriman relates, “Finally in mid-February (1936), I got a message: ‘I’ve found it! Come and see for yourself!’ What he’d found was glorious–powdered snow over open slopes, with Bald Mountain close at hand. By unanimous agreement the place was called Sun Valley. It named itself.” In March, the Union Pacific acquired land to build the lodge. Gilbert Stanley Underwwood, an architect from Los Angeles, designed the Ahwahnee in Yosemite and the Sun Valley Lodge. Underwood was influenced by architect Mary Colter who designed the El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon. The lodge was made of reinforced concrete. The wood look was created by impressing wood grain into the concrete and staining it brown. Most laborers worked for 43 cents an hour and board. Carpenters made 65 cents to 75 cents an hour in the summer of 1936. “Construction started in May, and the lodge was opened for Christmas that year, 1936,” stated Harriman. The 220 room, $1.5 million resort opened on December 21, 1936, but there was no snow until January 9. It didn’t matter. The guests were ready to party and there was still plenty to do. Public relations whiz Steve Hannagan, who had transformed a sand dune into Miami 54
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HISTORY
Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper on Dollar Mountain around 1941. Photo courtesy of Sun Valley Resort.
Beach, was hired to handle the resort’s marketing efforts. Hannagan did not ski, but promoted images of skiers getting snow tans with their shirts off. Jim Curran, an engineer for the Union Pacific, once helped build equipment for loading bananas on fruit boats in the tropics. To Curran, transporting a skier up a hill seemed like a similar problem. His design for a string of single chairs on a cable conveyor belt was tested at UP’s headquarters in Omaha in the summer of 1936. A chair was attached to a moving pickup truck. At first they tested it with a man on skis standing on straw, but found that when he used roller skates, they discovered the best speed to run the chairlift was 450 feet a minute. Sun Valley’s chair lifts, built by Union Pacific engineers, were the first in the world and whisked skiers to the top of the mountain for only 25 cents a ride. “Austrian ski instructors were imported to found the Sun Valley Ski School,” stated Harriman. “Challenger Inn, designed as an Austrian mountain village, followed the next year. Instead of the European type of funicular from bottom to top, we developed the three-phase chairlift, which added greatly to the versatility of skiing on extraordinary Bald Mountain.” Movie stars, politicians, and celebrities 56
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vacationed in Sun Valley from Marilyn Monroe, (whose 1956 film Bus Stop, was made in the area) to Gary Cooper, John Wayne and Lucille Ball. Some, like Claudette Colbert, who starred in the first feature made in Sun Valley called I Met Him in Paris (1937), enjoyed skiing, while others like Gerald Ford played golf, and Ernest Hemingway enjoyed hunting and fishing. Bowling was one of Sun Valley’s featured activities from the beginning. Six lanes were installed in the basement of the lodge in 1936. Bowling has been enjoyed by Sun Valley visitors, from commoners to royalty. His Imperial Majesty Reza Shah Pahlavi, Shahinshan of Iran, paid his first visit to Sun Valley in December 1949. “The Shah made his first acquaintance with bowling and rolled 173 on his first line,” writes Dorice Taylor in her book Sun Valley.* Sun Valley’s manager Pat Rogers advised sports director Joe Burgy, “Let him beat you.” “Here I am rolling like mad and this guy, a complete beginner, is beating me every frame,” related Burgy. The Shah enjoyed the sport so much, he ordered a bowling alley sent to Iran. “On his way out of the game room, he stopped to shoot a game of pool with one of the pin boys,” relates Taylor. The bowling alley has been updated since 1936, with automatic scoring from Brunswick. It features video games and a pinball machine with a Sun Valley theme. “Sun Valley achieved its objective of encouraging the development of ski
Anne Lindley and Ben Young’s wedding party bowls at the Sun Valley Lodge. Photo courtesy of Dev Khalsa Photography.
resorts in many parts of the west, and Idaho has the pioneer resort it is justly proud of,” concluded Harriman. “My hopes have come true.” Whenever you choose to visit, the timeless sport of bowling is always in season. ❖ * Sun Valley by Dorice Taylor, copyright 1980, p.187. Dorice Taylor wrote for the Sun Valley publicity office and became director in 1955. Pamela Kleibrink Thompson lives in Idaho. In addition to writing, she is a career coach and scenario role player for peace officer training. Pamela worked as a production manager on the Emmy Award-winning animated series The Simpsons, where she bowled regularly with members of the crew. She speaks on career issues at conferences all over the world. You can reach Pamela at PamRecruit@q.com.