Tuesday, February 15, 2022

In 1947, Skiing Hall of Fame member, and Marine Corps vet, Walt Schoenknecht, created Mohawk Mountain Ski Area in northwestern Connecticut. Thanks M Currie!


In the 1930s skiing became a popular pastime at Mohawk State Park in Cornwall, located in the state’s northwest corner. Roads previously built through the forest were turned into ski trails and in 1939 the Camp Tourney CCC, which had been created as a created as reforestation camp, constructed the first downhill trail on the mountain. 


In the mid-1940s Walter R. Schoenknecht leased the northwest side of the mountain from the state and developed a ski resort with six trails and tows. By 1948 the resort had nine trails and tows, an expanded parking area, and was a local hotspot, attracting winter sports lovers from all over.

Skiing in the 1948-49 season in Connecticut proved difficult because of below-average snowfall. Schoenknecht did not let this deter him, though, and he started to experiment with artificial snow. He first experimented by grinding ice blocks brought in from Torrington, and even though that proved ineffective, he did not give up. 

By 1950 he had an idea that would someday revolutionize the sport of skiing. Taking inspiration from tobacco field equipment, Schoenknecht contacted the equipment’s maker, Larchmont, and began a collaboration with the Tey Manufacturing Company. Together, they tried to replicate a machine that used compressed air and water on tobacco crops to create snow. The goal was to develop a snow-making machine that “mimicked the natural atmospheric process that produces snow.”

During World War II, Art Hunt, Wayne Pierce, and Dave Richey had worked on projects to prevent ice buildup on airplane wings. Following the war, they decided to leave airplane wings behind in favor of the burgeoning winter outdoor gear industry. 

Tey Manufacturers (a combination of the last letters of their last names) was also going through a rough patch in 1949. If people could not ski without snow, manufacturers could not sell skis. During the war, Pierce had read a report from a Canadian engineer who had used a fan to blow water at a plane to simulate icy conditions for research purposes. Instead of freezing to the wings, it sprayed little particles of ice. Pierce saw an opportunity.

While inventors experimented with snow-making machines as early as the 1930s, Tey’s original snowmaking prototype at Mohawk Mountain produced the first documented artificial snow for skiing.

Today Mohawk is the oldest and largest ski area in Ct




M Currie commented on the Caberfae ski area I posted on Saturday! :

I grew up near Mohawk Ski area in Connecticut. When I was a kid I often skied there, because local kids got free tow tickets every day but Sunday until they were 14. Before they had lifts in the early 60's, they had only rope tows, all powered by flathead Ford V8's. As I recall there were three stages to get to the top of the mountain, and on the main line, they were from Mercuries for a little extra zip. Scary fast. 

For a while the tows coexisted with the lifts, but kids didn't get lift tickets free until sometime around 1964. I wasn't a very good skier, but I loved the tows. Many people found them hard to use, crashed and got hurt, or had special fancy rope grabbers, but I became quite skilled. I'd go to sleep at night with the undulating tow tracks burned into my brain. I think I went down more for the fun of going up that the other way around.

The school I went to for a while, when it replaced its '39 Ford school bus, hired a person (possibly the same one who did the tows at Mohawk) to set it up as a rope tow, doubling as a shelter for putting your skis on. Their previous tow had been a semi-portable one using, I think, a Wisconsin air cooled engine.

A school I went to later also had a ski slope, and their rope tow was made from a mid-30's Ford phaeton, almost complete. When they updated it, some of the people on the ski team freed it, found where the wheels with tires had been put, and drove it around. Alas, I don't know what became of it.


1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the mention. I had known but somehow forgotten that Mohawk was also the pioneer in snow making. It was mostly artificial by the time I was there, and I do recall they had a prominent sign marking the fact, along with a big sign saying "New England Skiing is Best in March!"

    Although quite popular and attracting people from all over, the area was always run in a pretty small-town way. The main ticket taker for years was the public school principal, and most of the other work was done by local men, some of them part time. As I mentioned, they had a program whereby local kids got free tow tickets, and later free lift tickets, any day but Sunday (and I think they may even have relaxed that at some point). We also got half price at the ski shop, and I got my first pair of actual metal-edged skis there, inexpensive but quite functional Japanese ones, laminated, with even ebonite bottoms, for half price, which as I recall amounted to $12 (We're talking something around 1959 here). It was a few more years before I got decent bindings, and scrounged a good pair of boots to fit. Alas, a combination of boarding school, other interests, and mostly the sudden onslaught of actual prices, combined with outgrowing my old skis, pretty much ended my downhill career when I hit 15, but it was grand fun for a while. I was not a very skilled skier, but recklessly fast, and as I said, I loved those tows!

    A local friend, now deceased, acquired a number of the chairs from the first chair lift. He used one as the driver's seat in a woods vehicle I wish now I could show a picture of - a 50's Jeep station wagon chassis, rigged for four wheel steering, with a small dump body. I have one of those seats behind the barn still, but have never figured out what to do with it. I should probably hang it from a tree, as a rocker.

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