Blair Mountain Ski Area
Dillsburg, Pennsylvaniac. 1961-1966
Browse Blair Mountain Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. Near Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, a public road crossed the bottom of the slope, and skiers on rental gear simply walked over it in their skis. The 1965-66 brochure listed a T-bar, three tows and night skiing, and its mascot was a kangaroo on skis with a joey in its pouch. Pick a style below, then read the full Blair Mountain history further down. Down Home Apparel is an American small business remembering the best places and teams of yesteryear, and every shirt is printed to order in the USA.
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Blair Mountain Ski Area History
Blair Mountain Ski Area near Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, was one of the first ski hills in the York and Harrisburg area. By the account of Irvin Naylor, who later built Ski Roundtop a few miles to the southeast, it was started around 1961 by five partners from York, among them ski shop owner Bart Goldenberg, real estate developer Bennett Williams and steel supplier Herb Borger. The hill had about 300 feet of vertical, but the partners never bought the top 50 feet or so.
It began with a rope tow, and a public road crossed the bottom of the slope. Skiers on rental gear simply walked over the road in their skis. Naylor brought his young son there and came away unimpressed, and he later named Blair's cramped hill and rough service among his reasons for building Ski Roundtop, which opened in December 1964 on a much bigger hill.
Blair kept growing for a while. Its brochure for the 1965-66 season, put out by the Blair Mountain Ski Corp., listed a T-bar, three tows, snowmaking, a ski patrol, a ski shop and baby sitting, plus night skiing Monday through Saturday. It called itself your family ski area. An adult weekday ticket cost $3.25. The ski school was the Louise Love Ski School, and the brochure mascot was a kangaroo on skis with a joey riding in its pouch.
The 1965-66 season is the last one on record. Naylor recalled that Blair announced its closing in the spring of 1966. In the early 1970s the old lodge ran for a few years as a rock club called The Lodge, and from 1996 it housed a photography studio. Houses now stand on much of the hill, though concrete tow footings and bits of rope have turned up in the woods.