Highmount Ski Center
Highmount, New York1947-1993
Order Highmount Ski Center tees, long sleeve tees, hoodies and crewnecks. A pair of brothers, their wives and a friend bought 110 acres on a Catskills mountainside in the spring of 1946, cleared five narrow trails and built three rope tows. Then they waited until late January 1947 for snow. Browse the styles below, and the full Highmount history is further down. Every shirt is printed to order in the USA and carries the memories of bygone places and teams.
12 products
Highmount Ski Center History
Highmount Ski Center in Highmount, New York, sat on a north-facing Catskills mountainside along Route 28. It began with two brothers, Maurice and Francis Davenport, their wives, Gertie and Blanche, and a friend, Lincoln Christensen, who had skied together since 1939 on sheep pastures, wood roads and golf courses. In the spring of 1946 they bought 110 acres on the mountain. They cleared five narrow trails, built three rope tows and finished a base lodge, then waited for snow, which did not come until late January 1947.
Highmount grew from that start into a mid-sized hill with a ski shop, ski school and ticket office at the base. A local history lists a double chairlift, two T-bars, two platter lifts and a pony lift by the time it closed, and the trail maps from 1978 to 1985 show a main slope of a dozen or so named trails, a novice area and a rope tow. It shared the mountain with a state-run ski center that broke ground next door in 1949.
The lifts last ran in 1992 by one account, and other sources give 1993, so the closing year is not settled. The slopes have been dormant since and the runs have grown over. In 2015 the state approved an expansion plan for its neighboring ski center that includes acquiring the 78-acre former Highmount parcel.