Dave McCoy Photography

This is the first post of scanned 35mm slides from the Milici family archive.

Tony Milici and his wife Norma were longtime Bishop residents. Norma grew up in Bishop and was a few years younger than Roma but they knew each other for than 50 years. Tony came to Bishop after WWII in 1946 to pursue his love of skiing and the mountains.

Tony worked for DWP as a snow surveyor with Roger Link, another longtime friend. Tony was a ski instructor at the rope tow at McGee Mountain and was one of California’s first certified ski instructors.

Tony was with us when we built the rope tow at Mammoth for the first time, and was always a part of the operation up there.

I sent him back east one year to observe the food and beverage operations at Mt. Snow, Vermont, so that he could come back and show us how to run it right. After that, he ran the food and beverage department for close to 30 years and retired in 1978.

His son, also Tony, just brought out several suitcases full of 35mm slides from Tony Sr., and Norma’s mother, Vivian Watterson.

There are several thousand slides included in the collection, and we’ve just begun to scan them. They cover a lot of great history in Mammoth, Bishop and the Eastern Sierra. We were really close with the Milici’s so a lot of McCoy family history is covered as well.

We’ll post several groups of these in the coming weeks so keep checking in. Read along for captions and enjoy the good old days but don’t stop having fun today!

-Dave

To start, here is a shot of Norma, Gary McCoy, Roma, and Poncho, on top of the Main Lodge sundeck. Here is Tony and Norma, on top of the lodge. Here we have, from left, Bob (whose last name we’d love to be filled in on), Tom Dempsey, Gary, Dennis Osborne, Norma and Roma. Here I am with Gary, and Roma and Linda Myers-Tikalsky to the right. This is Randy McCoy, on the left, next to Kenny Milici, and Tony (Jr.) on the right, sliding out of the picture. We’re thinking this is from 1958, while the third floor of Main Lodge was under construction. Here is Randy Milici, Tony’s oldest son, Ken Lloyd, Gary, and Bobby Autrie on the right. They are sitting on the Weasel, an amphibious military vehicle from WWII that we used as a cat to get around the mountain. Main Lodge is in the background. We’re thinking this was from 1955. This is Tony Milici Jr., and Sr. Here is Norma with Gus Weber. Gus headed the ski school for many years and then spent the rest of his life as a packer and trail steward around Red’s Meadow. Here is a link from an old post with a picture riding a mule in the Mule Days parade. Here is a shot from about 1958 of Tony’s kids spending a summer day exploring the area around Chair 1. Here is Tony and his son, Tony (Jr.), skiing above Main Lodge in about 1959. This was recently after the additions were finished on the south side of Main Lodge. This is Tony (Jr.), Kenny Milici, and Randy McCoy at the ski school meeting area. On the left is Tony (Jr.) and his older brother, Randy. On the right are the Tonys (Sr. and Jr.). Here is Roma and Tony on top of Mammoth’s Main Lodge. Here is Norma, Audra Jo, and Ken Lloyd. Here is another with Gary, Tony, Roma, Poncho, and me, enjoying a beautiful day on the sundeck.