Waterville Valley Resort

Tom Corcoran, a two-time U.S. Olympic skier, began scouting mountains for a ski area site starting in 1964 and, after flying over Mt. Tecumseh in Waterville Valley, said: "When we flew over Waterville Valley, all the bells went off in my mind. It was exactly what I was looking for," per the resort's own "Tom Corcoran" page. In 1965, Corcoran formed the Waterville Company to purchase the valley floor land and secure U.S. Forest Service approvals. Waterville.com's own page states, without qualification, that "with the help of Sel Hannah, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Ralph Bean, Corcoran developed the Waterville Valley ski area in 1965 and 1966"; the resort was open for business by December 1966. Corcoran competed on the U.S. Olympic Ski Team at the 1956 Cortina d'Ampezzo Games and the 1960 Squaw Valley Games, placing 4th in giant slalom and 9th in slalom in 1960. He won the U.S. National Slalom and Giant Slalom Championships in 1956 and the National Slalom Championship again in 1957, and was inducted into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in 1978. On October 31, 1994, S-K-I Ltd. purchased the ski area from the Waterville Company for $10,037,631, per New England Ski History's Waterville Valley page. Marking the sale, Corcoran said: "after 30 years of looking out the window to see what burned down the night before, it's time for someone else to experience those joys." S-K-I Ltd.'s ownership of Waterville Valley was rolled into the newly formed American Skiing Company following the 1995-96 season, and American Skiing Company sold Cranmore and Waterville Valley to Booth Creek Ski Holdings, Inc. for $17.2 million on November 27, 1996. Booth Creek sold Waterville Valley to a group of investors, including John Sununu, on October 8, 2010. In the spring of 2013, Bob Fries stepped down and "future Governor" Chris Sununu took over as General Manager, and in July 2019 the Sununu ownership group announced they had acquired much of the remaining undeveloped land in Waterville from the Waterville Company. The resort's own site describes Waterville Valley Ski Resort as "an independently owned and operated resort," providing "an authentic, non-corporatized skiing experience." The resort's own site states Waterville Valley Resort "is known as the birthplace of Freestyle Skiing, opening the first Freestyle Instruction Program in the United States in 1969." Per the resort's own site, in 1970 "the ski resort hosted the first National Open Championships of Freestyle Skiing on the Sunnyside trails, organized by Tom Corcoran and Doug Pfeiffer." Per the same site, "in 1994, Waterville Valley Resort opened the first terrain park in New Hampshire - 'The Boneyard'." The resort's own homepage describes Waterville Valley as "Home of the oldest network of hiking trails in the United States." The town "was first settled in the 1760s, and incorporated as 'Waterville' in 1829," per Wikipedia's "Waterville Valley, New Hampshire" article; "the name 'Waterville Valley' was adopted in 1967," the year after the ski resort of the same name opened.