Squaw Valley, CA Photo - The Village at Squaw Valley, a Year-Round Sierra Mountain Resort in Olympic Valley, west of Tahoe City, California

The Village at Squaw Valley is a year-round Sierra Mountain resort in Olympic Valley, west of Tahoe City, California, on the western edge of Lake Tahoe. Best known for skiing and snowboarding -- more than 600,000 people test the mountain there each year -- Squaw Valley was the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics. A onetime University of Nevada star skier, Wayne Poulsen, purchased the first 2,000 acres (810 ha) of Squaw Valley Ski Resort from the Southern Pacific Railroad. Poulsen already had a history in the area: in 1931, he had placed third at an Olympic trials at Granlibakken in Tahoe City. Shortly thereafter, Poulsen met Harvard alumnus and trained lawyer Alex Cushing, who brought capital, political connections, and increased access to the project. After a disagreement over the resort's future, Cushing gained control of the project and became the chairman of Squaw Valley Ski Corporation. The resort opened in 1949, and Cushing remained its chairman until his death. Cushing modeled the resort after European ski destinations. He re-engineered the model of traditional U.S. ski resort by locating a swimming pool, ice rink and restaurants on the mountain instead of at the base. His designs also brought the most advanced lift technology to the U.S. for the first time. When Squaw Valley opened, its Squaw One lift was deemed the longest double chairlift in the world.

Credit line: The Jon B. Lovelace Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.