It was against all odds that a fledgling ski resort like Squaw Valley won the bid for the 1960 Winter Olympics. This feat put Squaw and North Tahoe on the world’s map, turning it into an international ski destination. The 1960 Winter Games were a landmark event for other reasons, as well. It takes almost 10 fingers to list the number of ‘firsts’ that occurred at the Squaw Winter Games — the first nationally televised Olympics, the first use of instant replay, the first time women competed in speed skating, the first Olympic biathlon, the first Winter Olympics held in the western United States, the first time athletes were housed in their own village, and the first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey for the U.S., to name just a few.
So where is such a seminal moment in Tahoe and winter sports history commemorated? Well, you could drive up to Donner Summit to see the aging Western SkiSport Museum, run by the Auburn Ski Club since 1969. But that’s only open on weekends during the winter. Or you could visit the recently opened Museum of Sierra Ski History and 1960 Winter Olympics, located in Tahoe City at the Boatworks Mall in the old Bookshelf space, next to Kiss and Makeup. Neither of these do justice to such a monumental event as the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics, say a group of people dedicated to building a world-class Olympic museum in Tahoe.
“We are the only place in the world that has had the Olympics that doesn’t have an Olympic museum,” said Eddy Ancinas, a member of the Squaw Valley Ski Museum Foundation Board. “Lake Placid and Park City do. Even Colorado Springs is trying to build [an Olympic museum]. And they’ve never even had the Olympics; they’re the headquarters for the U.S. Olympic Committee.”
While there is broad consensus that Tahoe, and Squaw Valley specifically, needs a first-rate Olympic museum, there is disagreement over where the museum should be located. After spending more than four years analyzing different sites up and down Squaw Valley, the museum board settled on Squaw Valley Park as its preferred location. But this has been met with opposition from a loose coalition of park supporters, pickleball players, and Placer County, who say the museum does not belong in the park and that there is a better alternative location.
The Squaw Valley Ski Museum Foundation was started in 2008, and conceptualization of the Squaw Valley Olympic Museum & Winter Sports Heritage Center began in earnest in 2009 in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary celebration of the Squaw Valley Olympics. Six potential sites were identified, including the Squaw Valley Stables, the ski area parking lot near the Far East chair, the old Squaw Valley fire station, the park, and the Poulsen property behind 7-Eleven.
But the board had a few key requirements that ruled out certain locations. One was that the museum not be a Squaw-centric project. Because the museum was to be a celebration of skiing in the Sierra and of all Sierra ski resorts — Sugar Bowl, Mammoth, Kirkwood — they did not want it affiliated with one resort in particular.
Another prerequisite was that the museum was visible from the highway to attract visitors.
“We needed to have a presence on the highway where we get people coming in and out of Squaw, as well as those on their way to the lake, who never venture into Squaw,” Ancinas said. “Skiers with boots on don’t go tromping around a museum, and there are far fewer people in Squaw the rest of the year.”
That left two sites — the Squaw Valley Park and the Poulsen property. But the foundation ruled that the latter did not work because of the existence of a power substation and easements, Placer County’s portion of the acreage was too small for a museum, and the Poulsens were not interested in selling. So the foundation board decided “it was full steam ahead with the park site as our only option,” Ancinas said.
“It is the best of both worlds,” said Bill Clark, president of the museum foundation and executive director of the Auburn Ski Club, of the park location. “It’s connected to the valley without being in the valley so it can represent the 1960 Olympics and be a gateway attraction for the rest of the ski industry.”
But others weren’t so sure. Squaw Valley resident Ed Heneveld, who spearheaded the 10-year effort to build the park, feels that a museum doesn’t fit with the park’s intent.
“I don’t think the museum belongs in the park,” said Heneveld, who prefers the north side of Squaw Valley Road for the museum. “A park is for recreation and the community.”
The 35-acre park, which opened in 2003, took an act of Congress to create. After years of lobbying by park supporters, Congress authorized the U.S. Forest Service to sell the land to Placer County, legislation that was signed by President Bill Clinton. The Forest Service’s deed restricted the land to summer-only and non-commercial uses, and the land is zoned forest recreation, facts that Heneveld cited in opposing the nonprofit museum’s location in the park.
“How can a museum be financially viable if it can’t have commercial operations … like a restaurant and store?” he said.
Other park users oppose the museum’s location there as well. In 2009, the North Tahoe AYSO Board wrote an open letter about the museum.
“We … would prefer to have a museum, with its increased traffic and tourism, in a location other than one built for the recreation enjoyment of our local children,” wrote Stacy Bordes, the North Tahoe AYSO Board regional commissioner at the time.
And then there are the pickleball players. Squaw Valley resident John Sproehnle said he and his wife Jean have taught more than 500 people to play pickleball in the Squaw Valley Park over the past eight years. A cross between tennis, badminton, and table tennis, the sport — which is popular with seniors — is played in the park’s lower parking lot. Placer County is currently planning to build three permanent courts, which would conflict with the proposed museum’s freight entrance. But Sproehnle, an avid skier who worked at the 1960 Olympics, doesn’t think a museum belongs in the park in the first place.
“The museum conflicts with the purpose of the park,” he said. “Pickleball is a use the park is dedicated for. It’s part of the spirit the park represents.”
John Wilcox, who is a member of the Squaw Valley Ski Museum Foundation and has been playing pickleball since the 1980s, is the lone pickleball player who disagrees with Sproehnle.
“I think the museum would be a huge, wonderful addition to the community,” Wilcox said, “and it could be built in such a way so it wouldn’t interfere with the planned activities of the park.”
He also disagrees with the sentiment that museums don’t belong in parks.
“There are great museums in great parks all over the world — in Balboa Park in San Diego, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Exposition Park in L.A.,” he said. “Museums and parks are not a new concept.”
Placer County Supervisor Jennifer Montgomery, however, is not sold on the park location. She says she has not seen demonstrated community support for that site. At a 2009 public charette about museum locations, Montgomery said the 100 people in attendance expressed “overwhelming support” for the 7-Eleven side. Secondly, Placer County is currently in preliminary discussions with the Poulsen Trust about redeveloping the property, which re-opens the discussion about building a museum on that side.
“It’s not about whether the park site is good or bad, but is there a better site? I think there is a huge opportunity,” said Montgomery. “We could have beautiful bookends to the entrance to Squaw Valley — the park on one side and the museum on the other. The focus and effort should be on making that work, and for now, that is the 7-Eleven side.”
This has left the museum foundation board, which had even proposed building real bathrooms and taking on snow removal in the park, feeling frustrated.
“We can’t understand how we have come up with solutions to be a partner in the park and enhance the experience there … but we haven’t gotten to first base with Placer County to have it heard,” said foundation president Clark. “It’s been a tough thing when you think you are doing such a great thing, and you get pushback. It’s kind of surprising.”
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