History with SnowBrains: The First Ski Lift in the World

The first ski lift in the world was created more than 100 years ago by a German hotel owner in the village of Schollach in the Black Forest region in Germany. Robert Winterhalde, manager of the “Schneckenhof”, wanted to make it easier for hotel guests to access the local hill and created the world’s first ski lift, which started operation on February 14, 1908. Construction for the ski lift started in 1906 when Winterhalde and a friend installed five wooden masts on the hill. The pair spent a good year experimenting with the design before opening the ski lift to hotel guests in 1908.

The little ski lift had a continuous circulating overhead cable which was powered by a mill wheel with hydropower and was 280 meters (920 feet) long. It covered a vertical of  32 meters (105 feet) and skiers and guests on sleds had to use a special clamp with lever arms to hang on to the rope. The design was a success and Winterhalde filed a patent with the Swiss Patent Office for his ski lift in July of 1908. (Fun fact: Albert Einstein worked at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern from 1902-1909, so may have seen the application come across his desk.)

In 1910, Winterhalde developed a second ski lift at nearby Triberg for the International Winter Sports Exhibition which was powered by a 15-horsepower electric motor. The Grand Duke of Baden awarded him with a golden medal. Despite this honor, Winterhalde faced an uphill battle in promoting his ski lift. He lacked the necessary credibility as he was not an engineer by trade. Furthermore, critics bemoaned that ski lifts would spoil the beautiful landscape tourists came for.

Ultimately, it was World War I that put an early end to tourism and both of Winterhalde’s ski lifts which were disassembled to salvage the scrap metal in 1914. The mill still exists to this day. Winterhalde died in 1932 and never got to see his idea of ski lifts take hold across the globe. Two years after his death, Ernst Constam, a Swiss mechanical engineer, built the first j-bar and later t-bar ski lift, which also used a continuous circulating cable much like Winterhalde’s design. It is pioneers like Winterhalde who have made the ski industry into what it is today. While some did not achieve worldwide recognition, it is their dreams and relentless pursuit of new ideas that helped shape skiing and boarding into what we know today.