Founding Father’s land survey leads to colorful start for Mansfield
Before becoming a state, Vermont was simply a wilderness between New Hampshire and New York – shared and claimed by each.  After the Revolutionary War this land was parceled out to settlers.  The area that includes what is now Stowe and Mt. Mansfield was granted to a group of 64 “proprietors” in a 1763 charter by New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth.

Ira Allen, reputed to be something of a land speculator, took advantage of this particular parcel distribution called Mansfield and invested - sight unseen - in some of the land shares.   Allen was paid ninety pounds to survey the acreage and, in order to do so properly, had to climb Mt. Mansfield reportedly becoming the first white man to reach the summit. 

The tale goes that when Allen got a good look at the terrain’s rockiness, pitch and abundance of evergreens, he knew farming would be difficult to impossible and realized he’d invested poorly.  Looking for a way to recoup, Allen purposefully misrepresented the land’s spruce and fir timber – which signaled poor farmland to any knowledgeable settler - as “gumwood” in the proprietors’ survey bills.  Ever the shrewd businessman, Allen claimed this so-called gumwood - which he tongue-in-cheek described as “tall straight trees that had gum” - made the land valuable and asked to buy the proprietors’ shares.  Sensing a good deal and a winning hand, the proprietors fell for Allen’s ruse and  pressed him to sell his rights to them - which he gladly did.   

Ironically, none of the original proprietors ever moved to the area.  It wasn’t until thirty years later in 1793, two years after Vermont became the nation’s fourteenth state, when the first permanent settlers arrived.

Mansfield becomes Stowe
The town’s population peaked at 279 in 1838.  But the area proved too rugged to be an attractive place to settle and the town of Mansfield eventually dissolved in 1848.  Land on the west side of the mountain was absorbed by the town of Underhill while the eastern side was acquired by what was now called Stowe.  Today it’s still the state’s largest township encompassing some 50,000 acres.

Smuggler’s Notch has infamous role in area history
All the while Stowe was gaining its footing as a town, the natural geography of the craggy pass between Mt. Mansfield and Spruce Peak was developing its’ own infamous history.  Travel through the pass here was tricky at best in the 1800s.  A carriage road was built to the Notch in 1894 and later improved in the 1920s.  The Notch’s huge boulders, small caves and narrow passageway proved a notorious hiding place not only during Jefferson’s trade embargo with Canada in 1808 and during the War of 1812, but also during Prohibition in the 1920s.

Stowe welcomes tourists as summer destination spot in 1800s; Green Mountain Inn’s early beginnings
While the town’s landscape proved unfriendly to farming and logging, local resident W.H.H. Bingham saw Stowe’s potential as a tourist destination for city folk seeking clean mountain air and spectacular views.  It was Stillman Churchill, owner of the first tourist hotel in Stowe – the Mansfield House which later became the Green Mountain Inn – who advertised for visitors to come sample the area’s outdoor treasures.  Bingham expanded on the idea and in 1856 built a carriage road – now known as the Toll Road - up towards the summit .  A few years later he constructed the Summit Hotel located just under the mountain’s Nose and by the 1870s, Stowe had established itself as thriving summer vacation spot.

Things reached a heyday when Bingham went on to build the Mt. Mansfield Hotel in Stowe village in 1863.  With 300 rooms, the Big House or Big Hotel, as the property was also known, could accommodate up to 600 guests.  The hotel burned to the ground in 1889.  Beams from the hotel’s huge horse and carriage barn were salvaged when the barn was eventually torn down in 1953 and used in the Green Mountain Inn’s Whip Bar & Grill.

Skiing comes to Stowe
Although summer tourism flourished in the late 1800s, it wasn’t until the next century that the relatively new sport of downhill skiing found its’ way to Stowe.  Swedish families who moved to town in the early 1900s were some of the first to ski as was Stowe resident Craig Burt whose equipment consisted of boards bent at one end and finished with a nailed toe strap.  In 1914 Nathaniel Goodrich, a Dartmouth College librarian, made the first recorded descent of Mt. Mansfield via Toll Road and the Stowe Civic Club staged the town’s first Winter Carnival in 1921.

CCC cuts trails on Mt. Mansfield; Sepp Ruschp founds Stowe Ski School; first ski patrol formed
When Mt. Mansfield’s first trails - the Bruce Trail followed shortly after by Nose Dive - were cut by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933 during the Depression, Stowe’s love affair with skiing officially began to get serious.  That same year Austrian ski legend Sepp Ruschp came to town to establish his now legendary Stowe Ski School and in 1934 the country’s first ski patrol was formed.   Winter weekend trains from New York City to Vermont, called the Skimeister trains, brought fresh enthusiasts.  In 1937 Stowe hosted the Eastern Downhill Championships for the first time and in 1940 the single chair was constructed becoming the longest and highest in the U.S. at that time.  The Stowe Derby, one of the oldest and most unique ski races in existence, began in 1945 and this year celebrated its’ 65th anniversary.  Many world-class skiers got their start on Stowe’s slopes including Billy Kidd, Andrea Mead Lawrence and Tiger Shaw.

Stowe Mountain Resort develops
The mountain has continued to thrive and expand over the years.  A ten year, multi-million dollar master plan has produced a transfer gondola which connects Spruce Peak with Mt. Mansfield, a new Spruce Camp base area containing retail and restaurant space and the luxurious Stowe Mountain Lodge and spa.  A new fine arts center is under construction and scheduled to be completed this fall.

Still renowned today as the Ski Capital of the East, Stowe has earned a reputation as a world-class year-round resort offering something for everyone, regardless of the season.