While skiing the ridge above Round Valley recently I looked fondly at the back of the Wasatch and thought of how beautiful it was and what a great place to live, work and play it was. Then I looked closer and saw that it was wall to wall houses and condos, roads and ski runs from Mayflower to Murdock.
“My God, what have we done?” I thought. I began to try to imagine what this place looked like 50 years ago.
There was an empty two-lane highway stretching from town to Kimball’s with twice daily cow crossings at Osguthorpe’s barn and a frost-heave roller coaster near McLeod creek in the spring. The junction was just a Chevron station with stale doughnuts and a Texaco station across the street with disgusting bathrooms. If you sat in your car long enough a guy would even come out and pump your gas.
There was no diamond interchange, tunnel or flyover, but just a freeway overpass full of potholes. The freeway was an improvement from the old two-lane Lincoln Highway, but the lines were painted only once a year and indistinguishable in the winter.
The Park West Ski Resort comprised of everything north of the Lookout house. Tombstone was called Tuna Ville, Dream Catcher was Old Lady, and Square Topped was skied once a year in the spring, probably by a guy in a cowboy hat.
A few condos were being built at the base below the muddy parking lot, with electric heat and single pane windows. The bar at the base, Smokey’s, was rocking from 3-6 in the winter but was dead otherwise. The Snyderville meadow was all flood-irrigated hay and was still a true mountain park that this city was named for.
Park City Resort stopped at the Thayne’s lift, while Jupiter Bowl and Peak were just a dream away. The gondola ride was a long, slow and round four-person cabin that took 25 minutes and two one-hits to get to the top.
The Mid-Mountain Lodge was at the angle station and served 25 cent mini beers from 3-4 for the last run down. The bars at the bottom always had a band and sometimes raucous skier debauchery with wet tee shirt or ski throwing contests.
Deer Valley was called Frog Valey, and Silver Lake was Lake Flat at the time, and the road from town turned to dirt at the small cat houses on Deer Valley Drive that had been the site of rough miner debauchery until 1953.
Main Street was gentrifying, but some places were still boarded up from the ghost town days. Properties could be bought for back taxes, but nobody wanted them.
The EE, with its Hungry Miner potato and egg pie, and the Coke and Number, with its Muckers Special Enchiladas with Pineapples, were the best places to eat in town for under $10. The Other End across the street had huge cable spools for tables out front for large loud parties.
Art still had the hardware store where you could have your self-esteem assaulted by Art, while you picked through the mixed nuts and bolts. Old miners begrudgingly shared their favorite bars with the skiers, but there was a tense hierarchy, with the skiers always at the bottom. “Ski when it’s good. Work when you should,” was our motto.
I think I remember diagonal parking, but that might have been a dream. Poison Creek, near the current low Main Street was just a sandy flood plain with a bunch of hippies living in sepia brown vans or avocado green station wagons and dilapidated miner shacks.
Someone threw the first shoes up in a tree, thereby starting a tradition that continues today. Every house in Old Town was falling down and included crooked floors, frozen pipes and flow-through ventilation but could be rented for $100 a month.
The golf course had only nine holes, but they ran out of money building the greens. Thayne’s Canyon and Park Meadows were underway with some custom homes and a lot of Enoch Smith specials, with or without porches.
Prospector was a toxic waste dump, and the kids went to school at Marsac and the high school on Park Avenue. Jim Santy was the music teacher, not the auditorium.
The city had purchased more snowplows, so they didn’t depend on the county, Salt Lake City or National Guard to help plow the roads after big dumps.
Even with lethal flows from the mines, the water tanks would routinely drain, and we would have to cut back our use for a few days to fill them in case fire flows were needed.
“Those were the days,” I thought as I skied away down the custom-rolled, dog-friendly trails. “These are the days,” I countered myself when I considered how we have evolved into the town and the people we have become.
We have matured with this town and although some folks have moved on, it’s still a pretty great place to live, work and play. Let’s keep it that way.