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A view of the ski jump from the Blyth Arena during the 1960 Winter Olympic Games at Squaw Valley. photo by Bill Briner |
Comments (1)Going for Gold
Olympic anniversary celebration and museum to commemorate Squaw's place in history
Published: September 19, 2009By Julie Brown
The official program from 1960
The tower of nations, designed by Walt Disney for the 1960 Winter Olympic Games, displays the five Olympic rings and the crest of all the nations who competed in the games. Today, the tower stands at the entrance to Squaw Valley, behind the Olympic torch.
photo by Bill Briner
Walt Disney designed all the ice sculptures in the Village at the Games.
photo by Bill Briner
The Blyth Arena, an Olympic-sized skate rink, was built in 1959 for the 1960 Winter Olympic Games at Squaw Valley and hosted the figure skating and hockey events. The arena was torn down in the early 1980s.
photo by Bill Briner
Click on images for slideshow
Olympism – an ancient Greek philosophy that provides the foundation of today’s Olympic movement – blends sport, culture and education to foster a sense of unity and peace among humanity. It’s the ideal that is celebrated at every Olympic Games.
And it often leaves behind a lasting legacy, as it did after the VIII Winter Olympic Games at Squaw Valley in 1960.
Throughout the mountain communities of Truckee and Tahoe, you see the legacy: every time you drive by the Olympic flame that burns steadfastly at the entrance to Squaw Valley, when hiking on the quiet, wooded trails behind Tahoma that once hosted the first Olympic Biathalon event, or when skiing the valley’s daunting peaks that continue to attract some of the finest athletes in the country, sending one after another to compete in the Olympic Games.
This winter marks the 50th anniversary of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games at Squaw Valley in conjunction with Squaw Valley Ski Corp.’s 60th anniversary. The Games also return to North America’s West Coast for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. This convergence of events makes for a perfect opportunity to celebrate our own skiing heritage and the lasting spirit of Olympism.
The Squaw Valley Ski Museum Foundation, an established nonprofit organization, is hosting a 10-day community event in January to celebrate the 50th anniversary and kick off a capital campaign for a new ski museum proposed to be built in Squaw.
“This is an opportunity that, if we let it slide by, will really never present itself again,” said Ron Parson, who sits on the museum foundation’s board and chairs the celebration committee. “The Olympics were at the time, and I think they still are, the biggest single event that happened in Placer County.”
Celebrating Olympism
Runners will kick off the Olympic Heritage Celebration on January 8, 2010 in a commemorative relay starting in Sugar Pine Point State Park and ending in Squaw Valley, where the opening ceremony’s fireworks will light up the finish line. During the festivities, participants will be able to free ski the original downhill courses, participate in a biathalon and discover the history of skiing through an interim museum set up in Squaw, followed by a 1960s retro party and an Olympian’s Ball. Events are designed to encourage participation, recreate our history and get students involved in several cross-country events for local schools, Parson said.
Squaw Valley Ski Corp. is partnering with the Foundation for the celebration, but the ski resort also plans to celebrate all season long with world-class events, said Christine Horvath, Squaw director of marketing. Squaw will once again host a stop on the Free Ride World Tour in February and the Freestyle Nationals.
“We are really just celebrating the heritage of sportsmanship and being inspired to compete,” Horvath said.
The museum foundation has also invited athletes, coaches and organizers who were involved in the 1960 Olympics.
“We are doing this huge outreach to the Olympians who participated in the 1960 Olympic Games,” said Linda Williams, executive director of the Squaw Valley Ski Museum Foundation. “We want them to be a part of this celebration.”
The U.S. Hockey Team Coach, Jack Riley, and Penny Pitou, who competed in the women’s downhill event, are among the Olympic heroes who have been contacted to attend this milestone event. Organizers hope the athletes will be able to share and record their oral histories, which will be a component of the new ski museum.
An interim museum, which will focus on the Sierra Nevada’s rich history in the snow sport industry, as well as the 1960 Winter Olympics, will open this winter at Squaw Valley as part of the celebration. Intended to elevate the museum foundation’s profile among the public, the interim museum will display items currently housed at the Western Ski Sport Museum, including longboards dating back to the gold rush, photographs of the first ski races in the mining camps and original Olympic artifacts.
Through the Olympic Heritage Celebration, and ultimately the museum as well, event organizers aim to leverage the area’s heritage to promote cultural tourism and spur an economic boost. Over 150,000 visitors browse through the Olympic Museum at High Camp in Squaw Valley or the Western Ski Sport Museum at the top of Donner Summit every year, according to a study conducted by Streamline Consulting Group last year. The study, commissioned by the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, predicted that the 10-day heritage celebration will draw an additional 50,000 visitors to the Tahoe Truckee region and generate more than $40 million in revenue. It also predicted that the museum, once open, will have a $73 million annual economic impact on the region, among other benefits.
“The lasting value of this type of facility can be quantified in terms of economic benefit, however it also provides a sense of community pride in local Olympic heritage and strengthens the overall branding and perception of the North Shore area as a world-class winter sports destination,” the study states.
Museum in the Making
“Culturally, [skiing and winter sports] define what all these mountain communities are about and why people come here,” said Bill Clark, executive director of the Auburn Ski Club and the Western Ski Sport Museum. “It’s this common thread to all the communities here. Just about everyone has a connection to winter sports.”
The Western Ski Sport Museum at the top of Donner Summit contains an expansive collection of artifacts from skiing history. However, the museum, built in the 1960s after the Olympics, is isolated, dimly lit and features displays made with super glue and scotch tape. The Auburn Ski Club has known for several years now that the collection should be moved into an improved space, Clark said, who sits on the Squaw Valley Ski Museum Foundation board.
“[The collection] is just not being done justice” at the Auburn Ski Club, said Clark. “It’s time to do something right with this history.”
Revealed to the public at a meeting in June, museum consultants envision a 20,000-square foot space with two permanent galleries, one dedicated toward the history of winter sports and the other devoted to the 1960 Winter Olympics. The new museum will offer an educational experience that is “story-based and people-centered,” and engages visitors with audio and visual displays. Consultants estimated the cost for such a museum would be around $15 million to $25 million, excluding the acquisition of the site and the collections. However, a final master plan detailing the cost for the museum has not been released and the foundation said they must work within their limits.
“We know what it can be,” Clark said. “Now, we have to decide what we can do.”
There are several highly visible sites throughout Squaw which planners are considering for the location of the museum. A site-selection committee, led by Clark and historian Dave Antonucci, is in the process of choosing a final site.
It All Comes Down To Dollars
The North Lake Tahoe Resort Association gave the museum foundation an initial $100,000 in start-up funds last year. A second $100,000, from the NLTRA’s infrastructure fund was approved last month by the Placer County Board of Supervisors. Beyond the initial start-up funds, however, the museum is counting on grants, donations, memberships and fundraising, said George Koster, president of the museum foundation’s board. “We are raising money as we can, if you will, over a period of years.”
The Olympic Heritage Celebration subcommittee received a separate $10,000 marketing grant from the NLTRA as well.
After a lengthy process, the museum foundation recently wrapped up the “Olympic” licensing process for the Olympic Heritage Celebration with the United States Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee. “[An Olympic license] gives us sort of a universal recognition and access to funding sources that we would otherwise not have,” Williams said. The museum foundation is now in the process of sending out sponsorship packages for the event to national and regional Olympic sponsors, such as AT&T and Coca-Cola.
The foundation is also permitted to sell Olympic merchandise, which will help raise funds for the proposed museum. However, they continue to seek designation of the proposed ski museum as an official Olympic facility.
An Olympic seal of approval legitimizes the anniversary celebration and the museum in the eyes of the world, according to Clark.
“Obviously, we want that credibility,” he said. “There’s nothing better than to associate yourself with the Olympics.”
A lot of work has been invested in this effort – most of it volunteer. But the people behind the ski museum and the anniversary celebration truly believe in the importance of restoring this legacy to the communities of Tahoe and Truckee.
“Our sense is that it’s as important for the future to capture this past as it is for maintaining our heritage,” Parson said. “We’re hoping that this anniversary will mark an ongoing process towards continuing this heritage.”
And if all goes accordingly, as Clark said during the public meeting in June, “At the 100th anniversary of the Squaw Valley Olympic Games, if we do our job right, [the museum] will be one heck of a place to celebrate.
~ Discuss this article with the author. Email jbrown@moonshineink.com.
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