New Deal Accomplishment: 310 miles of new ski trails, 113 new ski jumps, 56 new toboggan slides


Above: "Slope," a watercolor by Thomas S. Baker (1907-1986), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1938. Image from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Above: In many states across America, the New Deal built or improved winter recreation facilities. For example, the WPA built 310 miles of new ski trails and improved another 59 miles. The scene above is at Charleston Mountain, Nevada, ca. 1938, where "Through the efforts of the WPA and the Forest Service, this area has been opened up and developed for the enjoyment of the sports enthusiasts of southern Nevada." Quote and photo from the National Archives.


Above: A man takes flight from a WPA-built ski jump, located on Pleasant Mountain, Bridgton, Maine, ca. 1938. Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers built 65 new ski jumps and had 15 projects to improve existing jumps. The WPA's predecessor, the Work Division of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), built 48 new ski jumps (see here and here) and carried out 27 projects to improve existing jumps. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: A WPA poster promoting winter recreation in New York. Image from the Library of Congress.


Above: The Nansen Ski Jump, being constructed by the New Deal's National Youth Administration (NYA) in Milan, New Hampshire, October 1936. The jump is now on the National Register of Historic Places and, according to the "Nansen Ski Jump" Wikipedia page, "For almost fifty years this was the largest ski jump in the eastern United States and the foremost jump in the country. The architect of the ski jump was John Barnard Nichol, a resident of neighboring Berlin. The Nansen Ski Jump was the site of major championship ski jumping competitions. In 1938, the first Olympic trials were held at the Nansen Ski Jump." Photo from the National Archives.

Above: This photo of the Nansen Ski Jump's historic marker was taken in August 2019 by Andrew Laverdiere, as part of a project page submission to the Living New Deal: "Nansen Ski Jump - Milan NH." Photo used here under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.


Above: This 2017 photo shows the Nansen Ski Jump after restoration work. Photo by Wikipedia user "Sirberlinnh," used here under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.


Above: A WPA-built "ski slide" in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, ca. 1937. Photo from the National Archives.

Above: A WPA-built toboggan slide in Everett, Massachusetts, ca. 1936. The total number of toboggan slides built by the WPA is unclear, but the Work Division of FERA built 56 new toboggan slides and carried out 30 other projects to improve existing slides (see here and here). Photo from the National Archives.


Above: The WPA engaged in other winter recreation projects, such as operating, repairing, and maintaining the Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run at Lake Placid, New York, ca. 1936. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: A WPA poster promoting the WPA book Skiing the East (M. Barrows & Co., 1939). Image from the Library of Congress.


Above: One of the many trail maps from Skiing in the East (see previous image). The text of the book describes each of these trails in more detail. Image from Hathitrust.


Above: The New Deal also funded many thousands of projects to teach, assist, or supervise recreation activities, in order to get Americans out and about, rubbing elbows, and getting their muscles and bones moving. This photo shows a WPA worker waxing skis for folks wanting some winter fun in northern California, January 1939. Note the "Recreation Leader" arm band. Photo from the National Archives.


Above: Vacationers at Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Oregon, ca. 1938, head out for a day of skiing. Timberline Lodge is one of the most famous of WPA buildings, filled with WPA arts and craftsmanship, and still in operation today. Photo from the National Archives.

Winter Fun

The Work Division of FERA and the WPA reported their winter recreation work fairly well; other agencies, e.g., the CCC and NYA, less so. Still, adding up FERA and WPA numbers alone (see statistical note below) we can safely conclude that the New Deal built at least 310 miles of new ski trails, 113 new ski jumps, and 56 new toboggan slides. 

How important was this winter recreation work? Well, writing about a ski jump the WPA built in Aspen, Colorado, journalist Tim Willoughby of The Aspen Times argues, "The infrastructure created by the project, along with similar WPA projects at other burgeoning ski towns, served to kick-start a new industry. For Aspen, it provided the defining first step that led to international recognition." ("WPA helped to kick-start skiing," February 6, 2009).

(Statistical note: Due to a variety of factors--such as (a) single work projects that spanned over the course of multiple work-relief agencies, (b) more than one agency working on the same project at the same time, and (c) inadequate reporting--calculating the total New Deal work product for any category of projects can range from mildly challenging to extraordinarily difficult. I therefore use several methods--for example, leaving out the work product of one or more agencies--to keep the estimates modest, as opposed to overblown. My earliest blog posts go into these difficulties and methods in more detail.)

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