Overview
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Poverty Hill opened off Poverty Hill Road near Ellicottville in December 1963 with several lifts and a chalet, one of the larger ski resorts in western New York. It lasted one winter.1,3
Read the whole historyTodayThe land is the Poverty Hill Wildlife Management Area, about 950 acres in Ellicottville and Mansfield, with some traces of the ski area left. (2021)3,5
Timeline
7 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Poverty Hill, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Poverty Hill
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- Opened 1958 · 14.9 mi away · New YorkA ski area on West Five Mile Road in Allegany that opened as Grosstal, later ran as Ski Wing and Wing Hollow, and closed in the early 1980s.
- 1959–1979 · 15.5 mi away · New YorkA ski area off Route 39 east of Springville, in Yorkshire, that opened as Blue Mountain in 1959 and ran as Bluemont from 1968 through 1979.
- Years not yet collected · 39 mi away · New YorkA small T-bar and rope-tow hill on Route 19 just south of Warsaw, with snowmaking and night skiing, listed in guidebooks through the 1970s.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 5 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Poverty Hill opened off Poverty Hill Road near Ellicottville in December 1963 with several lifts and a chalet, one of the larger ski resorts in western New York. It lasted one winter. In July 1964 the Poverty Hill Development Corp., headed by David Dattner, filed for bankruptcy listing $401,673 in debts against $52,750 in assets.1,3
The hill came back as Snow Mountain for 1973–74, with three new trails and snowmaking. By December 1975 it was Olympus One, with ten slopes and trails, three chairs and two T-bars, open every day. The 1977 White Book gave 500 feet of vertical and 11 trails and warned that the lodge had burned; by 1978 the guide called the area questionable.1,2
A later reopening with more slopes and an updated chairlift came under the private Concord Ski Club, which closed in 1991 by Wikipedia's count, or around 1990 by Ellicottville Now's. In 2021 the state bought the tract for the Poverty Hill Wildlife Management Area, where a few traces of the ski area remain.3,4,5
TodayThe land is the Poverty Hill Wildlife Management Area, about 950 acres in Ellicottville and Mansfield, with some traces of the ski area left. (2021)3,5
Timeline
- 1963Poverty Hill opens in December with several lifts and a chalet1
- 1964Poverty Hill Development Corp. files for bankruptcy in July1
- 1973Reopens as Snow Mountain with three new trails and snowmaking1
- 1975Renamed Olympus One: three chairs, two T-bars2
- 1977White Book notes the lodge was destroyed by fire2
- 1991Concord Ski Club, the last operation on the hill, closes4
- 2021State buys the land for a wildlife management area3
Sources for this history (5)
- 1skikabbalah.com · Poverty Hill
- 2skikabbalah.com · POVERTY HILL References
- 3Ellicottville Now · Poverty Hill Wildlife Management Area (Kathleen Kellogg, August 12, 2021)
- 4Wikipedia · Ski country
- 5New York State Department of Environmental Conservation · Poverty Hill Wildlife Management Area
Photos
No photographs of Poverty Hill we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Poverty Hill, in their own words.
Facts
Location
42.3224° N · 78.6964° W · New York
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1963–1991
Closed after the 1991 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
Its numbers
all 4all 4, in one list
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain