The lift was unusual enough to attract newspaper coverage before it opened. In its November 19, 1955 edition, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the installation as the first combination T-bar and chairlift ever constructed in the eastern United States. A formal dedication was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, December 4, 1955.
There was a practical reason for the arrangement. Laurel Mountain’s lodge and skier services were located at the summit, with no road access to the bottom of the slopes. If someone was injured near the base, the chairs provided a way to transport that skier uphill without requiring them to stand on skis and ride a T-bar.
Laurel Mountain already had an impressive history by then. Pittsburgh financier Richard King Mellon began developing the ski area in 1939, recruiting Austrian skiing pioneer Hannes Schneider to help design its trails. The mountain opened on January 11, 1941, and became one of Pennsylvania’s leading ski destinations following World War II, eventually promoting itself as the “Ski Capital of Pennsylvania.”
Its summit-based facilities gave Laurel an unusual layout shared by other Mid-Atlantic ski resorts, including Pennsylvania’s Blue Knob and West Virginia’s Snowshoe Mountain. Visitors at these resorts can begin their ski day near the top and ride lifts back uphill. Before Laurel installed its hybrid lift, reaching the summit required riding three separate rope tows.
The new Constam T-bar climbed more than 700 vertical feet, substantially improving uphill transportation. It was part of a broader round of improvements at Laurel Mountain. The Post-Gazette reported that work had been completed on the resort’s 15 slopes and that a new addition had been constructed at Laurel House. The December 4 dedication was also scheduled to include a showing of films from the previous spring’s Pennsylvania skiing championships, held at Laurel Mountain.
Laurel had some company in this experiment. In 1948, Colorado’s Steamboat Springs opened a lift on Emerald Mountain that also combined T-bars with single-passenger chairs. The Colorado installation predated Laurel Mountain’s lift by seven years, making the Post-Gazette’s distinction of “first” in the eastern United States particularly relevant.
Laurel Mountain continued introducing new technology, including a snowmaking system covering four slopes in 1956 and a conventional double chairlift for the 1968-1969 season. The resort later endured decades of financial difficulties and intermittent closures before reopening in December 2016 following a major renovation.
Today, Laurel Mountain is owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and operated by Vail Resorts, with a modern quad chairlift carrying skiers back to the summit. Its unusual hybrid T-bar has long since disappeared, leaving behind a fascinating chapter in Mid-Atlantic skiing history.
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