Brains
The world’s first chairlift was built in Sun Valley, Idaho, in the fall of 1936, and it’s all thanks to Union Pacific and bananas. Union Pacific’s chairman Averell Harriman was behind the idea of opening the first destination ski resort in America and enlisted Austrian family friend Count Felix Schaffgotsch to scout for a location and tasked Union Pacific’s engineering department with developing the right means of transportation for the location Schaffgotsch had discovered in Idaho. This led to the development of the first two chairlifts in the world which were constructed on Sun Valley’s Proctor Mountain and Dollar Mountain. The design of these new means of transportation was patterned after conveyor belts, which were used to load bananas onto cargo ships in Central America.
James Curran, a bridge engineer for Union Pacific, designed the first plans for the chairlift. Curran’s previous work making conveyor systems that ran at a continuous flow and loaded bananas on ships in Honduras inspired his design for a machine that could carry humans uphill and drop them off on top of a mountain. When Harriman asked Curran and his team to come up with a system that could carry skiers uphill, Curran thought about replacing the banana hooks with chairs rather than developing further on the J-bars and T-bars developed in Europe. “That has to be the most stupid idea that’s ever crossed this desk,” replied Harriman when the design was put on his desk for approval.
However, Harriman mulled over the idea and decided to give the young engineer a chance. To test the concept of using a chair, Curran attached a chair to the side of a Union Pacific truck and used a volunteer to scoop up while driving along. The volunteer was John E.P. Morgan who was employed by Harriman as assistant to the chairman for the development the Sun Valley ski resort. Morgan also laid out the first trails and runs at Sun Valley with Charles Proctor and was an avid skier. While the first attempt ended with Morgan face-first in the dirt, a subsequent attempt with Morgan on skis rigged with roller skates was succesful and the concept proven. Curran was given the go-ahead by Harriman to design and build the first chairlift on Proctor Mountain east of the Sun Valley lodge as well as another shorter chairlift for beginners on Dollar Mountain closer to the lodge. The world’s first chairlift at Sun Valley was opened on December 21, 1936.
Union Pacific was instrumental in the early growth of skiing as a recreational sport in America. The popularity of the third Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York, in 1932 helped spur Union Pacific and Harriman to develop a winter destination resort at Sun Valley in an effort to get people to ride the train and take up skiing. But it was the ingenuity of James Curran that ultimately led to the development of the world’s first chairlift. James Curran was inducted into the National Ski Hall of Fame in 2001. John Morgan was inducted in the National Ski Hall of Fame in 1978 and Morgan Ridge at Sun Valley is named in his honor.
This article is incorrect according to your own web site. “The world’s first chairlift” was created in Germany in 1908. Just search “History with snow brains” and you’ll find that one too.
That is John E. P. Morgan. Number 11 in the National Ski Patrol roster.
The picture of the man sitting on the chair lift, facing the camera, is most definitely not my father, James M. Curran. My sisters and I think it is the Austrian aristocrat who was the UP’s consultant on the project.
The man driving the the modified test car is my dad in the Omaha UP yards. We have been told by Mary Grumunder, who did significant research into the development of the chair lift, has told us the the guinea pig on the chair was JP Morgan. As a member of the UP Board he was fascinated with the project and came to Omaha to check out its progress.
PLEASE USE THIS INFORMATION TO CORRECT THE CAPTION ON THE FIRST PICTURE.
Thank you so much for this information. We would have a lot less to do around here without the brilliant idea your father helped create.
Taken from the ” Chronology of Selected Ski Lifts , Notes for 2001 Exhibit, New England Ski Museum ” :
In 1933 , Shawbridge rope tow opens on the “big hill” at Shawbridge, Québec in the Laurentides,
by Alec Foster. “Not a funicular, but better, a 2,400-foot endless rope, passing through blocks at top and
bottom of its span of two-thirds of the hill, and around a special hub on the rear axle of the Dodge…Five
cents a trip or fifty cents a day and business was booming “(Canadian Ski Annual, 1933, p. 50).
Oldest USA chair lift. Sun Valley.
Sweet!!! I love bananas that much more now!
2 things that have always gone together. Bananas and skiing.
I had no idea. Always figured it was in the alps. ‘Merica!