Mount Southington

Mount Southington Ski Area's own "Our History" page states that Dr. Harold Richman, returning from a Vermont ski trip with his wife Barbara, was inspired to build a family-oriented ski area in central Connecticut, and that after finding a dairy farm for sale, "Dr. Richman partnered with members of his family along with the Palmisano family and Dr. Marino Grimaldi of Bristol, CT and other local investors" to purchase it. New England Ski History adds that Richman — a New Britain native, Navy veteran, and Trinity College and Tufts Dental School graduate — enlisted real estate broker Anthony Mastrianni Jr., who acquired options on the site from 14 property owners; William and James Palmisano and Richman's brother George were also investors. Two corporations were formed, Mount Southington Associates and Mount Southington Ski Area; Walter S. Ayre Jr. was the area's first general manager, James D'Anconia operations manager, and Jim Day ski school director. The dedication ceremony, originally planned for mid-December 1964, was postponed to Valentine's Day 1965 and then delayed again by rain; the ski area closed for the season at the start of March 1965 without ever holding it, even though a rope-tow-served slope had likely opened to skiers around December 20, 1964, per New England Ski History's own hedge. During the debut season, 17 property owners sued for an injunction to halt snowmaking, alleging noisy compressors and an illegal Sunday operation under Connecticut's "blue law"; 85 other property owners petitioned in support, and the injunction was avoided after the ski area agreed to reduce compressor and loudspeaker noise. After that debut season, a "quonset-type" summer theater building opened at the end of June 1965 with a performance of Gypsy that drew 500 people, Anthony Mastrianni Jr. heading the theater company; the theater was leased to an outside operator for the 1966 season. In May 1969, the area offered fifty six-year, family-of-four season passes for $500 toward a chairlift, and in August 1969 announced the Avalanche double chairlift for the 1969-70 season. NASTAR racing arrived circa 1973-74, "reportedly claiming the second highest participation rate in New England." Southington's next expansion, in the late 1970s, started with a J-Bar for the 1977-78 season, followed the next year by the Stardust triple, the mountain's second top-to-bottom lift — New England Ski History's own account of this expansion carries no word calling it "major." By the 1966-67 season, manager John Rigby — the source's own title for him, not "general manager" — claimed the area's $3 two-hour ski lesson was "the lowest cost in New England," with an estimated 14% of skiers taking part in lessons at the time.