Here is the next set from the Milici archive of 35mm slides.

In this one, we’ve got several shots of Main Lodge renovations, old days from the Mammoth Mountain Inn, and big snow years around Main Lodge.

Read along and enjoy the history of our favorite place to ski, work and have fun.

-Dave

This is Tony Milici (Jr.) and Norma Milici. Here are the Milici kids in front of the Arlberg, a restaurant and hotel that was on the corner of Minaret and Main Streets. Here is another of the Milici kids, on the road to Main Lodge.We think this is Mark and Charlotte and Mark Zumstein, with their kids. If anybody can verify that, please do.Here is the front of Main Lodge from the late 1960s.Here is the construction of the Gondola building at Main Lodge. We built the bottom gondola in 1965, and continued it to the top the following year. Here is the area around Chair 6 and Bowling Alley. It looks like we hauled a bunch of debris out of the gondola path and were getting ready to haul it out of Bowling Alley. The Yodler.Here is the Inn, buried in snow. Here is T-Bar 2, going up Broadway. Chair 1, T-Bar 1, and the west end of the Top.

Here is the next set from the Milici family’s collection of 35mm slides. There are some fantastic shots in here, including the Milici and McCoy kids running Chair 1 in the summer, construction of the east wing of Main Lodge, and the Mammoth Mountain Inn swimming pool, which was there before we took over the Inn.

There are many more to come to check back in a few days.

-Dave

Here are the McCoy and Milici kids hanging out at the bottom of Chair 1. We let them play around on the chairs and learn a bit about them when they were young. Here is Tony Milici (Jr.) operating Chair 1. We didn’t let them run the chair with people on it for a long time!Tony (Sr.) and Tony (Jr.). Here are the kids on Chair 1 in the summer of 1959 or 1960. They are over Gravy Chute. Here is Chair 1, Rope Tows 1 and 2, and the construction of the second wing on Main Lodge. The Inn is in the background and I think the Yodler is to the right. The Yodler was built in 1959, which is probably about when this picture was made.These are more from Chair 1, looking back towards Main Lodge, which was going through a big add on. Here is the Inn at about two-years-old. This is the construction of the east wing on Main Lodge from the parking lot.  Who remembers the pool at the Mammoth Mountain Inn? The Inn was owned by eight other different parties and we got it from them the day before it went bankrupt. We cleaned it up and made it successful, but we took this pool out before we did much with the Inn. It needed a lot of repair and posed some safety problems, so we filled it up with dirt.

Here is some dirt work going on around Hair Jump and Chair 3. If you look closely, you can see a big pile of dirt being moved around on Hair Jump.

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.

Here is another set of motocross pictures from late-December.

This was actually done on Christmas day. We had a good part of the family out there riding, and the others were watching and taking pictures with Roma and me.

It was a great day and the weather that week couldn’t have been better.

We think-kinda hard-that’s it’s going to be winter now so get out and enjoy it.

-Dave

On Saturday afternoon Penny and I decided to get out for some sunshine.

It’s good that we did, because it looks like winter has finally made its way to California.

The ducks are happy, sleeping and eating and squawking. There was a wood duck perched on the fence when I came around. I grabbed the camera but I was a few seconds too late. He’s probably in this mess of ducks somewhere if you can find him.

We also stopped by Paul Bunyon’s rock pile. He came for lunch with me and Roma a while back and needed some exercise after so he made this for us. It sure was a nice gift.

-Dave

Here’s a footbridge across the creek behind our house.

This is Paul Bunyon’s creation. He came out and set these rocks up for us. Here are some more ice formations on the creek. The temperatures change but these stay cool!Make what you want of these rock formations. We made these rolls on our motorcycles a long time ago. Here is an old-fashion water heater.