John Litchfield was skiing at age 7 and competing in ski jumping by the time he was 14.
He was a natural, and it helped that his late father, Norman, was a ski-jumping coach in Maine.
Litchfield skied well into his 70s, said his cousin, Caroline Poirier of Brunswick, Maine.
Litchfield went on to own the Red Onion in Aspen, open the town’s first ski school and sell real estate in Denver. He died June 10 at 93.
A service will be held later.
Litchfield was chosen to ski for the U.S. in the 1940 Winter Olympics, but the event was canceled as a result of World War II.
He taught skiing at Sun Valley, Idaho, and became director there. Then he went into the military and was assigned to the famed 10th Mountain Division, which trained in the Colorado Rockies.
He served in Italy and earned the Bronze Star.
After the war, he and two friends from the 10th Mountain Division opened the Aspen Ski School, and he and Tom Kelleher bought the Red Onion. They renovated it and renamed it John Litchfield’s Red Onion, said Poirier.
Litchfield was recalled to active duty during the Korean conflict and worked in the intelligence division in the Pentagon. He attended the Army’s Strategic Intelligence School.
In 1952, he became national sales manager and marketing director for Outboard Marine Corp., working in several states.
In the 1970s, he moved to Denver, said his cousin, because he just loved Colorado. He worked as a commercial real estate broker.
He was active in Colorado Republican politics and was chairman of the party in the 1st Congressional District.
He was past president of the Pacific Northwest Ski Association and a board member of the National Association of the 10th Mountain Division. He is in the Colorado, Maine and U.S. skiing halls of fame.
John P. Litchfield was born in Lisbon Falls, Maine, on July 21, 1917, and was educated in Auburn, Maine. He graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., with a degree in economics and was on the school’s ski team. He told his family that when he was young, “we skied on long wooden sticks.”
He was married and divorced three times and had no children.
In addition to his cousin, he is survived by a niece and two nephews. He was preceded in death by his only sibling, Sally Litchfield Pabst Hein.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
