Family owned fun: Beaver Mountain is oldest family owned ski resort in nation
Beaver Mountain is the longest family owned ski resort in the United States, and for owners Ted and Marge Seeholzer, it has been their life.
Beaver Mountain was started in 1936 by a group of local sports enthusiasts. Harold Seeholzer, Ted’s dad, and his friend Don Shupe acquired Beaver Mountain from the group in 1939.
According to Ted, his dad and Shupe just took over the business and “no financial arrangements were made.” Two years later, Harold bought out Shupe, and the resort has been family owned and operated ever since. According to the National Ski Area Association, it is the nation’s longest family run ski resort.
Ted grew up working at Beaver Mountain, and during the 1950s while he was in high school, he was paid seven dollars a day. He continued working there while attending Utah State University and was paid ten dollars a day. Ted’s loyalty to his family’s business was more important than money.
“I could make more money than that pickin’ up potatoes,” Ted said.
Beaver Mountain is accessible today through Logan Canyon, but accessibility to the resort hasn’t always been that easy. The road to Beaver Mountain wasn’t created until 1947 when money was appropriated to grade a road and make the resort accessible. About the same time, water from a nearby stream was redirected to the lodge at a rate of 2 gallons per minute for culinary use.
Originally Beaver only had a rope tow to pull skiers to “The Ridge,” a steep part of the mountain. According to Marge, it was a steep part of Beaver Mountain, that wasn’t very good for beginners. Since snow machines used for grooming the snow hadn’t been invented yet, skiers were required to help groom on their first run, or they weren’t allowed to keep skiing.
“First trip down you were required to sidestep down. If you didn’t do that, they’d take your ticket away from you,” Ted said. Now instead of making people sidestep down the mountain to groom the trails, the Seeholzers own four snow machines that cost about $200,000 each.
“In our day, that was a hell of a lot of money,” Ted said.
In 1960, the Face lift was put in, and the holes for the wood towers were dug by hand. The lift cost $60,000, and according to Ted, today a lift of that caliber would cost, “roughly a million.”
Harold’s brother and his family got involved in the business at that time, and combined all their money to put towards improvements at the resort.
At the time the resort wasn’t bringing in enough money to pay the family. They were all forced to hold other jobs and work at Beaver on the side.
The Little Beaver lift was installed in 1964 because the Seeholzers knew they needed a place for beginning skiers, and the Face lift was just too steep. Sending a beginner to the face was, “not too good of an idea, now we could entertain a beginner skier,” Ted said.
Harold died in 1968 after a battle with cancer. In 1969, Harry’s Dream lift was installed, a lift that went all the way to the top of the mountain for the first time.
It was named appropriately, since Harold had always wanted to see a lift go all the way to the top.
Even though Beaver Mountain is one of the smallest resorts in Utah, they keep plenty busy, selling more than 3,000 season passes a year, but times haven’t always been so good for the Seeholzers.
According to Marge, 1977 was the worst year to date, there wasn’t enough snow that year to open the resort until the end of February.
“[It was] a terrible drought year, that about killed us,” she said.
With help from loans throughout the years, and after re-mortgaging their home more than once, the Seeholzers were able to see it through the rough times.
“I used to think I owned Zions Bank, I was in there so much borrowing,” Ted said.
The next improvement scheduled for Beaver Mountain is to replace Harry’s Dream two-person lift with a triple-chair lift. The Seeholzers have already bought the lift and are hoping to have it in by the end of summer.
-scottsj@cc.usu.edu