For most people, today is simply April Fools Day. For Parkites who arrived in the 1970s and early 1980s, it’s Clown Day.
The Newspaper indirectly noted that the first affair was in 1974. By 1975, Clown Day was an official fundraiser for the Park City Ski Club and Park City Ski Team for their efforts to make ski racing accessible to junior competitors.
While the phenomenon only featured around 80 participants in 1976, Clown Day quickly outgrew its fundraising roots to become a Park City holiday.
Some of the main group to get Clown Day started included Greg Ash, Terry “Tutu” Jannott, Jim Carr, Tim “Razor” Sharp, Joe “Porky” Onn, Bob Blair and James “Steakhouse” Grinsell. In an obituary for Terry Jannott, Jay Meehan of The Park Record wrote “Tu-Tu, of course, insinuated the entire concept of ‘Clown Day’ into Park City’s consciousness.”
In addition to being a fundraiser, the event also started as a larger concept. The first few years featured a parade down Main Street and an official brunch. The event also changed dates each year, usually occurring in mid-April as a kind of closing event for the ski season. Not until 1981 did Clown Day move to April 1 on a permanent basis.
Due to the timing, Clown Day often overlapped with the Park City Town Race series, where locals compete in ski racing competition. Sometimes, locals had to choose between the silliness of Clown Day and the seriousness of the Town Race.
Herein belied one of the problems that would spell the end for Clown Day. After the 1985 April 1, when Clown Day and the races collided, the race director complained of low attendance for the usually popular series, citing too many locals off gallivanting as clowns.
Another problem the community faced was that school attendance dropped dramatically each April 1, as students would play hooky and head to the slopes for Clown Day. School administrators and some parents were not too happy with the absences.
Perhaps the largest problem for Clown Day was that after it outgrew its fundraiser status, it ultimately became one large party. Sometimes the clowns would become too rowdy, often after consuming a bit too much alcohol.
Then-Park City Ski Area had never officially endorsed Clown Day, but had also not prevented the dress-up day. Eventually, however, they began to field complaints from out-of-town guests who happened to be on the slopes when Clown Day locals took over the runs.
First, the resort decided to step in and half-participate in the day by throwing a parking lot party near the base of Three Kings lift. The idea was to keep people occupied at the party and away from the slopes. Other directives included stopping alcohol sales at 1 p.m. for on-mountain oases and disallowing employees from participating in Clown Day.
But after the 1985 conflicts, the resort decided it would perhaps be easier to just put a quash on the event altogether. So in December, they announced that all season pass-holders and coupon users would be banned from dressing up on April 1 (or any other day should the date be changed).
Many locals were, of course, not happy.
In an editorial, Rick Brough claimed that removing the local clowns (drunk or not) at the behest of tourists was more dangerous than letting the tourists ski freely, writing, “They are keeping the safest and best skiers off the slopes. At the same time, who are they trying to get on the slopes? A bunch of rich, accident-prone, out-of-state tourists just begging for a compound fracture. … [They] won’t be watching the clowns. They’ll be too busy body surfing over rocks or being impaled on aspens.”
While rowdy Clown Day participants certainly hold some of the responsibility for its cancellation, ultimately a fun local tradition was booted in favor of catering to tourist comfort. The unofficial holiday was virtually nonexistent for the rest of the century.
Luckily, some diehard Parkites refused to let the very Park City holiday die out and kept the tradition alive in subtle ways until, by the 2000s, they could be more out in the open with dressing up and having fun on the slopes each April 1.
It’s still not an official event, and the resort still doesn’t support it, but they have looked the other way over the last 25 years as a tamer version of Clown Day takes place each year.
Rick Brough ended his editorial with spirited Parkite wisdom: “Get the clowns off the streets and onto the ski slopes, where they belong!”
Dalton Gackle is the Park City Museum’s research coordinator.