The national Ski Hall of Fame sits in Ishpeming for a reason, this is where the whole sport got organized
When you picture the home of American skiing, you probably think of Colorado. Big mountains, Aspen, Vail. You should be picturing a small mining town in the U.P. Organized skiing in America was born in Ishpeming, and the sport’s national Hall of Fame still sits there today.
It sounds like a stretch until you look at the history.
The story starts, like so much of the U.P., with immigrants. Norwegian and Scandinavian settlers came to the iron and copper country for mining work, and they brought their skis with them. To them, flying off a snowy hill on a pair of wooden boards was not a novelty, it was just winter. In 1887, they organized the Ishpeming Ski Club, one of the oldest ski clubs in the entire country.
The next year, in 1888, they held their first public ski meet. The longest jump of the day was a whopping 35 feet. They have held a tournament every single year since, making it one of the longest-running winter sports traditions in North America. The club is now well past its 130th annual jump.
But here is the part that put Ishpeming on the map for good. In 1905, ski clubs from across the Midwest gathered in town and formed the National Ski Association. A Norwegian immigrant and Ishpeming Ski Club founder named Carl Tellefsen was elected its first president. That organization is still around today. You know it as U.S. Ski and Snowboard, the group that runs the American Olympic ski and snowboard teams. It started right here.
And then there is Suicide Hill. Built in 1925, it is the legendary ski jump that looms over Ishpeming, and yes, that is really its name. A local newspaperman christened it after a jumper got banged up on it the first season, and the name stuck. Generations of ski jumpers, including Olympians, have launched themselves off it, and the annual tournament there still draws crowds every winter.
Given all that history, it made perfect sense to put the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame and Museum in Ishpeming, which is exactly what happened back in the 1950s. The current building, fittingly, has a steep roofline shaped like a ski jump. Inside you will find the legends of American skiing, a huge research library, and a whole lot of very old skis. It sits just down the road, in a very U.P. twist, from the Da Yoopers Tourist Trap.
So the next time someone is going on about skiing out in Colorado, you can let them know where the whole organized sport in this country actually got its start. Not in the Rockies. In a snowy little iron-mining town in the Upper Peninsula, where the immigrants who came to dig ore decided the hills were too good not to fly off of.
Sources: the National Ski Hall of Fame, U.S. Ski and Snowboard, and the Ishpeming Ski Club.
Suicide Hill Ski Jump near Ishpeming. Photo by Rklawton, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Keep exploring
More From Yooper Hub
Know a story we should cover?
Help Us Find What Matters Across the U.P.
Send us a local lead, community event, photo, or story idea. The best Yooper Hub stories often begin with a reader.
YOUR READING IS COUNTING
You are earning Yooper Points.
Your progress is saved in this browser. Finish the story to earn 10 points, then keep them with a free account.