January Twenty-Eight, Nineteen Thirty-Four: The First Ski Tow in America
Near Woodstock, Vermont
On January twenty-eighth, nineteen thirty-four, a group of skiers in Woodstock grabbed hold of a moving rope on a snowy hill on Clint Gilbert's farm and were pulled to the top without having to climb. It was the first time in American history that a mechanically powered rope tow had been used at a ski area, and it changed winter sports in the United States permanently.
The idea came out of a conversation among skiers gathered one evening at the White Cupboard Inn in Woodstock. They were tired of climbing uphill on their own legs after every run and complained loudly about it. Robert and Elizabeth Royce, who ran the inn, decided to find a solution. They had heard about a similar device built at Shawbridge, in Quebec, and they built their own version: a long rope running over pulleys at the top of the hill, powered by an automobile engine.
Skiers gripped the moving rope and rode up the hill without climbing. It sounds modest by any standard today, but in nineteen thirty-four it was a genuine revolution. The rope tow transformed skiing from a sport that demanded exceptional physical fitness into something that almost any willing person could try. Other hills across New England and then across the country built their own versions within a few years. The era of American ski resorts began on Gilbert's hill in Woodstock.
