Sharp Mountain Ski Area

Sharp Mountain Ski Area in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, was cut into the north face of Sharp Mountain, the long ridge that walls in the city's south side, in the Yorkville section at the west end of town. Its brochure sold it as family skiing within city limits. The lodge went up in 1964 and 1965 at 201 South 26th Street as part of a winter sports complex reported at about $350,000, run by Sayre Operations of Ashland. It had glass walls so skiers inside could watch the whole slope, plus a dining room, a cafeteria, a snack bar and a big fireplace.

The trail board at the base listed a J-bar, a T-bar and a double chairlift, with a main slope, a T-bar slope, a beginners slope, a ski school slope and a trail through the woods. A fire tower on the ridge was marked on the map as a landmark. The builders had ties to the coal business, and the snowmaking ran on pumps and compressors taken from the mines. The water came from the city system at about 50 degrees, so the guns only worked in hard cold. The area was in the 1969 national ski atlas.

The hill never made money. In the early 1970s it sat idle for about a year with no buyer, until an out-of-town physician bought it in September 1973 and reopened it for one more winter. It closed for good after the 1973-74 season, and the equipment was sold off to other ski areas. In 1975 the Pottsville Club, whose Mahantongo Street clubhouse had burned the October before, bought the lodge as its new home.

The club stayed until 2013. The building reopened in 2016 as The Lodge at Sharp Mountain, a restaurant and event hall, and was closed again by early 2020. Strip mining and a road have since crossed the old lift lines, and a few lift footings are still in the woods above the lodge. In 2006 the city planned ski races on the old slope for its 200th birthday Winter Carnival.