Beaver Mountain is a small, local ski area located in Logan Canyon, Utah. Established in 1939 by the Mt. Logan Ski Club, Beaver Mountain was purchased by Harold and Luella Seeholzer in 1945. It remains owned and personally run by members of the Seeholzer family, and today is apocryphally known as being the longest continuously owned family ski resort in the country. Generations of families in Cache Valley have grown up skiing at Beaver Mountain; it is an important and beloved community asset.
Utah has long played an important role in the history of recreational alpine skiing in the west. The majority of existing research on skiing in Utah, however, is from an economic or environmental perspective, while historical studies largely focus on more well-known resorts along the Wasatch Front. This project expands understanding of Utah ski history and ski culture by focusing on a smaller, local resort and its importance to the local community. It does so by documenting the voices, perspectives, and oral histories of friends, employees, volunteer ski patrol, and users of Beaver Mountain ski area, offering multiple perspectives on this local resort and on local ski culture.
The collection houses products from the Beaver Mountain Oral History Project, which includes oral history interviews and photographs from Beaver Mountain volunteer ski patrol, employees, owners, and guests. Also included are photographs of buildings such as the lodge, lifts, the ski patrol building, various outbuildings, and other locations pertaining to Beaver Mountain. We are grateful to the Seeholzer family and Travis Seeholzer in particular for permission to conduct this research.
The documentation for this project was completed by graduate students in the Oral History and Folklore Fieldwork seminar (Eng/Hist 6720) taught by Dr. Lisa Gabbert in the spring of 2022. Transcriptions for this project were partially funded by the Utah State Humanities Council. The Beaver Mountain Oral History project was determined as “not human subjects research” by USU IRB. Principal investigator: Lisa Gabbert.
View the individual audio, transcript, and photographs for our interviewees and topics:
Family Members
Volunteer Ski Patrol
Employees
Guests
Affiliates/Partners
Credits
- Danny Stewart, Daryl Bishop, Emma Crisp, Gillian Coldesina-Schroeder, Hovan Lawton, Jace Jones, Michelle Robinson, Millie Tullis, Sadie Nellis (Spring 2022 Field School students): Fieldwork (interviews, recordist, photographer), transcription, metadata
- Lisa Gabbert (Principal Investigator, Project Curator, USU Folklore Program & Department of English): Field School faculty, interviewer, photographer, metadata
- Terri Jordan (Fife Folklore Archivist, USU Special Collections and Archives): Special Collections & Archives liaison to collection, collection curation and management, digital project proposal
- Susan Gross (Susan Gross Oral History Transcription Services): Transcription
- Andrea Payant (Metadata Librarian, USU Library): Metadata management and advisor
- Brittany Bertazon (Digital Projects Manager, USU Library): Digital project planning/integration, landing page support and management, assist graphics and promotional efforts, assist digital file management and digital preservation processes, coordinate and review press release, facilitate and maintain collection website accessibility
- Darcy Pumphrey (Digital Asset Librarian, USU Library): Digital file management and digital preservation advisor
- Shay Larsen (Graphic Designer, USU Library): Graphics creation
- Paul Daybell (Archival Cataloging Librarian, USU Library): Finding aid creation
- Preston Waddoups (Copy Editor & Writer, USU Library): Landing page support, press release
- Kellianne Gammill (Marketing Coordinator, USU Library): Collection promotion
