At the foot of historic Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs is a lodge with a special room known as Olympian Hall. From the rafters hang dozens of flags representing Steamboat’s 65 Olympians and the Games in which they competed.
That legacy fills Leif Howelsen with pride because his father, Carl, built the first ski jump there in 1915, nine years before the first Winter Olympics. Even more heartwarming for Howelsen is the continued vitality of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club, where hundreds of children pursue some sort of ski competition every winter.
“It’s wonderful,” said Howelsen, 85. “I feel so happy because it is exactly what Dad wanted. He had a passion for passing on skiing to young people, because he said when young people get it, they will have it for a lifetime.”
Carl Howelsen, who died in 1955, put on a jumping demonstration at Steamboat’s first Winter Carnival in 1914. Last week, his son served as grand marshal for the 96th Winter Carnival, and a bronze statue of his father was unveiled downtown.
“It’s wonderful to be up at Steamboat again and to see the colossal activities there,” said Howelsen, who lives in Oslo, Norway, and visits Steamboat every few years. “Do you know they have a program for 1,100 kids (in) cross country, jumping, alpine, snowboarding?”
Carl Howelsen was born in Norway in 1877 and was a double Holmenkollen champion in 1903. In 1905 he immigrated to Chicago, a stone mason looking for work, and that year he was instrumental in the establishment of Chicago’s Norge (Norwegian) Ski Club. The club exists today on the same spot Howelsen found for it in Fox River Grove, at a time when another Norwegian immigrant named Knute Rockne was attending a Chicago high school.
In 1909, Howelsen moved to Denver, where he built a ski jump on Inspiration Point near the current Willis Case Golf Course. In 1913, Denver and much of Colorado was immobilized by a monster snowstorm.
“Suddenly they see a person skiing, gliding in the city,” Howelsen said. “One of them shouted, ‘Can you teach me how to do that?’ Dad said. ‘Yes, I would be glad to.’ That was George Cranmer. They became very, very good friends.”
Cranmer later created Denver’s mountain parks, among them the Winter Park ski area.
Howelsen jumped at Hot Sulphur Springs in 1911 and 1912. He discovered Steamboat in 1913 and fell under its powerful spell.
“When he saw Steamboat, he immediately felt, ‘This is the place I want to live,’ because of the mountains, the valleys,” Howelsen said. “He was totally taken in by Steamboat.”
Howelsen Hill, big and steep for its era, would become famous for world- record jumps in 1916 and 1917. But when Howelsen went back to Norway in 1922 to visit his parents, he realized they needed him there. He also became reacquainted with Leif’s mother, whom he married. They stayed in Norway and Leif was born in 1923.
“He faithfully looked after us,” Howelsen said. “But I think if it had been up to him, he would have gone back to Steamboat.”
Carl Howelsen believed in the power of skiing to teach children life lessons, something that happens on a daily basis at Howelsen Hill today. Leif recalls an example when he was 11 years old.
“There was a hill near our house that was going to have a national meet,” Howelsen said. “Dad had built the hill and was in charge. One day he said to me, ‘OK, on Sunday I will let you be a forerunner.’ This was a hill I was scared of. I said, ‘No, Dad.’ He said, ‘It’s easy, you are jumping.’ I said no. Then he said, ‘Are you a sissy?’ That was the last word. . . . To my great surprise, I jumped 125 feet. At that time, that was (very long) for an 11-year-old boy.”
Leif was no sissy six years later when the Nazis occupied Norway. Active in the resistance, he was betrayed by a friend and sent to a concentration camp. He considers it “a miracle” he wasn’t executed.
“I belong to a generation that forever will be grateful for America,” Howel- sen said. “I will always feel we in Europe must never forget this. And then on top of that, you came in with the Marshall Plan. Certainly my generation has not forgotten.”
Europe’s younger generations may be increasingly indifferent to those sacrifices, but it’s comforting to know Carl Howelsen will never be forgotten in Steamboat. Even now, more than a half-century after his death, his legacy is renewed by the exuberance of youth every winter.
