Burnt Meadow Mountain Ski Area
Brownfield, Maine1972-c.1982
Shop Burnt Meadow Mountain Ski Area tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. Brownfield townspeople planned the hill after the 1947 forest fires, and three trails opened with free skiing on February 5, 1972, served by a 3,148-foot T-bar with a 675-foot rise. The T-bar towers were still standing in 2014, some with carriers still on the line. Pick a style below, then read the full Burnt Meadow history further down. We are an American small business bringing back the signs and logos of places and teams that are long gone but remembered fondly.
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Burnt Meadow Mountain Ski Area History
Burnt Meadow Mountain Ski Area in Brownfield, Maine, was a town project, started after the 1947 forest fires left Brownfield short of jobs and customers. Locals formed a nonprofit planning board in 1964, and by 1966 it was the Burnt Meadow Mountain Recreation Association. A study paid for with a small grant said the north-facing slope could make a good ski hill, and in June 1967 the Farmers Home Administration approved a $275,000 loan. Engineers laid out the trails before the money was all in place, and the land was acquired in 1971.
The first lift was a 3,148-foot T-bar with a 675-foot vertical rise, built in the fall of 1971 with an access road. Three trails, the longest about a mile, opened with free skiing on February 5, 1972, on natural snow. A 600-foot pony lift for beginners and a paved access road came the next season, and plans for two more peaks, more lifts and a second base lodge never got built. The area had no snowmaking, and a very poor winter in 1973-74 may have kept it open only a few weeks. The association had trouble paying its bills, the town put a lien on the mountain in April 1973, and the property went to the Farmers Home Administration in 1977.
The mountain ran again around 1979 or 1980 under the Zodiac Skiway name, when a ski-area family from northern Maine took it over. Sources are not sure why it was renamed. The new operators kept the lifts but did not make the area pay, and it closed around 1982. Accounts disagree about the base lodge, with one saying it is now a private home and another saying it may have burned in 1988. Trees have mostly taken back the trails, and the T-bar towers were reported still standing in 2014, some with carriers still on the line.
No lift-served skiing has come back. Volunteers with a backcountry skiing group have cleared glades on the old terrain for human-powered use, working with a local snowmobile club. A trail network on the mountain draws hikers.