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.
For a history of the CCC camp see https://cornwallhistoricalsociety.org/civilian-conservation-corps/
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
See https://www.newenglandskihistory.com/Connecticut/mohawk.php for it's history
M Currie commented on the Caberfae ski area I posted on Saturday! :
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.
