Lookout Mountain

Lookout Mountain stood on the Laurentian Divide about 2½ miles north of Virginia. Local business leaders raised money for it, hoping to draw tourists as the area's high-grade iron ore ran out. It opened in mid-December 1958 with a double chairlift, the first in Minnesota and, the Minneapolis Tribune wrote, the first between Upper Michigan and the Black Hills. Governor Orville Freeman spoke at the dedication. The Tribune put its vertical rise at 250 feet; MWLSAP lists 302. In December 1960 the Duluth News-Tribune counted seven trails and two new runs, the chairlift plus seven rope tows, and night skiing four evenings a week.^1,2,3,4

Early seasons went well, but by the mid-1960s ski areas with snowmaking had spread across the Upper Midwest, many closer to the Twin Cities. Lookout went through a series of managers and a bankruptcy; the Small Business Administration foreclosed its mortgage, and a Virginia sporting-goods dealer bought the equipment for $34,500 and tried to carry on. The land belonged to the U.S. Forest Service. In the fall of 1970 the Virginia City Council voted 6–3, for the second time, against spending $70,000 to save it, and the lift, chalet and tows were to be taken away. The chairlift went to Detroit Mountain in 1972.^1,3,5