Examining Mohawk Mountain’s rich history

The Hotchkiss Library of Sharon hosted local author James Shay Feb. 2 for a talk on his new book “Mohawk Mountain Ski Area: The Birth of Snowmaking.”

The book follows the life of Mohawk founder Walt Schoenknecht and his important contributions to the sport of skiing.

The evening presentation was delivered to an engaged audience of skiing fans in the library’s main room. Shay began his talk with a few photographs of views from the top of Mohawk Mountain, showing distant mountain ranges, uniquely eroded rock faces and structures that still stand from the times of the revolutionary war.

Shay showed pamphlets, posters and original hand drawn maps and designs from when Mohawk first opened in 1947.

Shay spoke about the life of Walt Shoenknecht, the main subject of his book. Shoenknecht founded the Mohawk ski trails in 1947, leasing the land in 1946 and spending $45,000 on the construction of the ski area.

In Mohawk’s second season, Mohawk did not get any snow and resorted to ordering several tons of ice blocks, crushing them and spreading them on the slopes. This process was time consuming, costly and overall a worse experience than real snow. From this season, Shoenknecht got the idea to look into snowmaking.Shoenknecht enlisted the help of the TEY Manufacturing company, run by Wayne Pierce, Dave Richey and Art Hunt. The three engineers used the research of Ray Ringer to build the first snow making machines. These machines were brought to Mohawk and are the first documented case of a trial run of the snow making machine.

TEY ended up filing the first patent for these devices, and snow machines were installed on the mountain. The machines continued to develop and evolve up through the 1980’s and today there are one hundred modern snow machines on the slopes of Mohawk.

Shoenknecht was inducted into the skiing hall of fame in 1979 for his many contributions to the sport introduced in his ski areas on Mohawk and Mount Snow in Vermont. Today, Shoenkneckt’s daughter Carol Lugar remains the president of Mohawk as one of the few remaining family-owned ski areas in the United States.