The Cunningham Legacy in Skiing at Gore
Deborah Hosley Cunningham assembled the exhibit for the North Creek Depot Museum, collaborating with Pat’s brother, Dick Cunningham.
The 90th anniversary of the first Snow Train is just six months off. It was on Sunday, March 4, 1934 that nearly 400 winter sports enthusiasts jammed onto a train chartered by the Schenectady WinterSports Club for a day of skiing, tobogganing, and skating in North Creek.
It was their sixth attempt at scheduling the train, having cancelled five previous trips starting in 1933 due to lack of snow.
A big celebration is planned for the weekend of January 13-15 with activities centered at the Tannery Pond Community Center. On August 27, the North Creek Depot Museum hosted a preview with a salute to the Cunningham family, whose members have played outsized roles in developing North Creek's ski economy.
The arrival of the first Snow Train was a major milestone in the story of how skiing came to North Creek. But for its beginning, we need to go back to 1908. That's when Patrick J. Cunningham and his wife Catherine moved to North Creek with their two sons, John and Butler, and started a general store.
"That store, the North Creek Ski Bowl, the Great Depression, FDR's work program, and peoples' love of fun and sport all intermingled into a booming economy that produced jobs and commerce and a healthy outdoor pastime for millions of people," said Deborah Hosley Cunningham, summing up the story for an audience of around 50 who turned out at the North Creek Depot Museum to celebrate the Cunningham family's contribution to skiing, white-water rafting, and the North Creek economy.
A FAMILY REUNION
Butler and Margaret Cunningham had four children, of whom three are photographed here: Mary, Dick, and Tom. A fourth sibling, Pat, died in 2021.
The event had the feel of a family reunion, as children, grand-children and great-grand-children toured the space that the museum has devoted to skiing at Gore, an exhibit that has now been expanded with photos and artifacts collected by Deborah, who was married to Patrick Cunningham, one of Butler Cunningham's sons, and Dick Cunningham, another of his sons. Cindy Morse and other board members assisted.
"Imagine in the 1930s when the Great Depression decimated jobs, dried up resources, and left people to figure out how to survive," Deborah continued. "It was in this environment that Patrick J. Cunningham, the first, and his son, Butler, took a small general store and planted the seeds for a booming ski economy."
“The store was a traditional Adirondack mercantile business in the sense that it carried just about everything a family might need, from food to clothing to other dry goods,” Sue Goodspeed wrote in the North Creek News-Enterprise. Butler met Margaret shortly arrived she arrived to begin a teaching career at North Creek High School. Her parents had been caretakers for Alfred Vanderbilt, who had purchased the Sagamore Lodge from William West Durant.
It was at the Sagamore that Margie had learned to ski. She met Butler through mutual friends, and they married in 1934.
The couple used to enjoy early skiing with other local residents, such as Martha and George Baroudi, Judge Bennett and wife Ruth, and Helen Cornwall.
“We had toe harnesses and no poles,” Margaret told Sue Goodspeed. “We loved the Rabbit Pond Trail, but quite frequently we had to cut a sapling and use it to slow down. No one really knew how to turn in those days.”
Butler served as president of Gore Mountain Lift Corporation. As the sport began to grow, he and fellow North Creek merchant Jim O’Keefe began to stock ski equipment and clothing in their stores.
Pat raced on the national circuit. He was one of the top 20 US skiers and tried out for the 1964 Winter Olympics but broke his elbow before the trials and had to withdraw.
“These modern supermarkets really got their ideas from people like Butler and Jim,” Margaret continued. “They had that entrepreneurial spirit and carried just about everything.”
“Many Scandinavian people in Schenectady learned that we had skiing here and they began to come up.”
The pivotal moment in this story arrives with the 1932 Lake Placid Olympics, which Butler attended with Kenneth Bennett, Howard and Guy Alexander, Lee Hewitt, Art Prescott, Dr. Braley and others.
"So you can imagine when they had the Olympics in 1932 and they were young men,” Dick Cunningham explained. "The Depression was really horrible. In economics, they talk about the velocity of money. Well, there wasn't any money so there wasn't much velocity. My dad sold anything you could buy at a general story -- skis, meat -- and they might take in $15 or $30 for the day.
“Now you had the Olympics. This was so exciting. 'Let's go! Let's see it!' But they didn't go in style. They took their tents and sleeping bags. They tented outside and went to all the events. When they came back to North Creek, they said, 'Winter doesn't have to be terrible. Life doesn't have to be boring. We've got a great mountain. We even have a road up the mountain and there are trails because they logged that whole side of the mountain and they could come down those log roads."
That’s how skiing at Gore started. It’s a great story that, with the 90th Anniversary of the first Snow Train approaching on March 4, is especially worth telling.
"Butler and Margaret worked tirelessly in the industry for more than 50 years, faithfully attending sales shows and conferences and serving tens of thousands of skiers. They saw the explosion that gave the joy of skiing to millions of people," Deborah added.
Butler was among a half dozen prominent citizens of North Creek who formed the Gore Mountain Lift Corporation, including Ken (Judge) Bennett, Ken Swain, Phil Brassel, George Greggory, William Shields, William Sullivan and Howard and Guy Alexander. Their plan was to build a t-bar lift at the North Creek Ski Bowl that would dwarf any rope tows and lifts east of the Mississippi. Construction began in the spring of 1946. A crew led by Pat Monroe, George Cullen and Fred Duell made sure the lift and trails were finished before the snow came.
“All the diggings for the footings for the towers were dug by hand with a pick and shovel,” recalls John Oates in a first-hand account published by the North Creek News-Enterprise. He worked on the project that summer and was paid $1 per day.
“SKIING WAS A WAY OF LIFE"
Not surprisingly, Butler and Margaret raised their four children -- Patrick, Dick, Tom and Mary -- to be skiers. Pat raced on the national circuit, earning a place at the 1957 Junior Nationals. He was one of the top 20 US skiers and tried out for the 1964 Winter Olympics but broke his elbow before the trials and had to withdraw.
"He returned to North Creek to give his life to the ski business, transforming an old cattle and chicken barn into Cunningham’s Ski Barn, eventually expanding the business to eight ski shops at its peak,” Deborah continued. “Pat did all of the buying and selling of ski merchandise, set bindings, tuned skis, and cut cross country trails. He supported tens of thousands of skiers over 65 years. In the offseason, Pat worked for Torrington Construction as an engineer for ten years and built roads in the North Country. “
In 1978, Pat went rafting down the Hudson River with a few friends and had a brainstorm and suddenly the upstate white water rafting industry was born. Pat operated Hudson River Rafting Company for 35 years, rafting thousands of people on the Hudson, Sacandaga, Black and Moose Rivers and Ausable Chasm. He employed hundreds of people including several who went on to operate their own rafting businesses today.
Pat's son Tyler now runs ski shops in North Creek and Lake Placid — and we believe Cunningham's Ski Barn is the oldest continuously run family owned ski business in the U.S.
"With Pat Cunningham's death in 2022, we saw this history disappearing,” said Deborah. “We believed there was a story to tell, especially with regard to the nuances of skiing, ski racing, and the ski business that was an economic boon to the region. Today, we are looking back."
The oldest continuously run family owned ski business in the U.S. and a North Creek legend.
Greg Schaefer filled in the story with more details, noting first that Patrick Cunningham, the eldest, was also for 50 years a district forest ranger responsible for building a number of fire towers in the area, including the one at Swede Mountain in Horicon.
"Look at the metal supports and you'll see his name on each piece as it was all shipped to Riparius under his name."
Schaefer also described the key role that Patrick's son Butler played with other town leaders in the establishment of the Gore Mountain Lift Corporation and the construction in 1946 of the 3000-foot T-bar, the longest in the Northeast up to that time. Butler later opened the ski shop at Big Gore when that area opened in 1964 and established Cunningham's Ski Barn at its current location in the 1970s.
Dick Cunningham recalled stories his father would tell him and his siblings about the early days.
"And so skiing began," Dick continued. "But nobody knew how to ski! Nobody knew how to turn. There was one skier, Arnold Alexander, a Dartmouth student, who knew how to ski. And then the German engineers would teach skiing. They yelled 'Christie! Christie!" and everybody thought they were swearing at them."
"When World War II ended, John A. Roebling built a T-bar at Stowe and then, looking at Gore, said, 'Well, there's another place to put one.' They presented the idea to all of the families in town and though they really didn't have the money to do it, they somehow put this together and built this lift and and it made skiing exciting."
"Skiing was a way of life," Tom recalled in his remarks. "We lived on the rope tow. It was either a quarter a ticket or a nickel a ride, but Bucky Barnes punched our ticket about once a year. We expected to get 30 rides a day and we were upset if we couldn't get that many. You had to wiggle your way through the line a little bit."
"We didn't know much about turning, so we would just go straight down beside the tow and turn at the bottom. There was a jump, but I was never too good in the air. I didn't mind the air but I never liked the landing."
Mary praised the Depot Museum board and all of those who have possible the building's preservation and the development of its collections.
She added: "I skied with my brothers, but when we had to climb that big hill to get to the top, Daddy would put me on his back and walk me up, making my brothers carry my skis."
