Escapees May-June 2024

A Town That has Lived the Cat’s Nine Lives

By BIANCA DUMAS #145498

Park City, Utah, was fi rst explored by Mormon pioneer Parley P. Pratt, who named it Parley’s Park City. A few families who appre ciated the valley’s good grazing land were its fi rst settlers. In the 1860’s, soldiers stationed at Fort Douglas, in Salt Lake City, began prospecting and turned up sil ver and lead. Soon, prospector’s camps, miner’s shacks and broth els sprang up. Once the Golden Spike was driven through the rail road at nearby Promontory Point,

making the fi rst Transcontinental Railroad a reality, a spur line was built to transport Park City’s lead and silver to the coasts, and the town boomed. Mining was big business until the 1950’s when the price of silver plummeted. B ut Park City lived on. It reinvented itself with Treasure Mountain ski area, fi rst accessed through a three mile mine tunnel and an elevator ride to the surface. Modernized over time, this became North America’s largest ski area, Park City Mountain Resort, with 7,300 skiable acres. When Utah hosted the Winter

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ESCAPEES Magazine May/June 2024