Community Information

The Treasures of Park City – Silver, The Silver Screen, and White Gold

Long before Park City became a world class ski resort town and the primary mountain venue for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, it was famous for silver mining.  Scouts for the U.S. Army discovered the first silver in the area while they were based near Salt Lake City for the purpose of preventing any trouble between the first Mormon settlers, the indigenous population of the area, and travelers headed to California.  The claim was staked with a flag on a staff on what is now aptly named Flagstaff Mountain at Deer Valley.

The town of Park City was founded by prospectors in 1869, and as a piece of America’s Wild West, it enjoys a lively and colorful past.  By 1900, it was a booming mining town with 10,000 residents and 100 saloons.  The area boasted the second largest silver strike in the U.S. serviced by 1200 miles of mining tunnels under the city.  The deepest mining shaft is 2600 feet deep, and the wealth created here has had a deep impact on America’s economic landscape ever since fueling fortunes of the likes of George Hearst who owned the Ontario Mine and whose wealth later led to the Hearst publishing empire.

Park City continued to mine silver until the early 1970's, but in truth the fortunes of the mining industry had started to wane by the late 1950’s.  The town’s fathers convened to plot the future of Park City and turned to the next most logical natural resource – the Greatest Snow on Earth.  Knowing that they needed a second act, the mining company, United Park City Mines, started the ski business in 1963, when they built the first lifts on what was then called Treasure Mountain, and the rest is history.

Today the Park City area has three world class resorts: Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort, and Canyons Resort.  In addition to hosting more than half of the events of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Park City also hosts Sundance Film Festival every year, the largest film festival in the U.S. and one of the most famous in the world.  As the town’s winter fortunes have grsown, the summers here are being discovered and Park City and Deer Valley is now a vibrant year round community.