Park City Mountain Resort photograph collection, 1971-1994

The town of Park City sprung up in Utah's Wasatch Mountains after army prospectors discovered silver in the area in 1868. Early miners used primitive skis and snowshoes as transporation to the mines, and skiing emerged a recreational activity by the 1920s. Scandinavian miners held jumping tournaments on the Creole Mine dump (now the Creole ski run to the Town Lift), and the newly formed Park City Ski Club conducted guided ski tours on the hills that make up the modern resort.

As the area's silver mining industry faded away in the mid 20th century, the town's last surviving mining company, United Park City Mines, received a federal loan to help revive conomically depressed rural towns and opened the city's first ski area, Treasure Mountain Resort, in 1963.

For its first four years of operation the resort featured the Skier's Subway lift, which carried skiers in modified mining trolleys two and a half miles through the pitch dark Spiro Tunnel to the Thaynes Hoist, where they boarded the old mine elevator and were lifted 1,750 feet to the surface near the Thaynes chair lift.

Treasure Mountain changed its name to Park City Ski Area in 1966 and to Park City Mountain Resort in 1996. Its sister ski resort, Park City West (later Wolf Mountain; now The Canyons) opened in 1968, and nearby Deer Valley opened in 1981.

Park City hosted its first World Cup ski race in 1986. During the 2002 Winter Olympic Games hosted by Salt Lake City, Park City Mountain Resort hosted the men's and women's giant slalom, men's and women's snowboarding parallel giant slalom, and both men's and women's snowboarding halfpipe events.