Maine Ski company celebrates 175 years, Hussey seating

Sunday River celebrated its 50th birthday, Mt Abram turned 50 in 2010, Sugarloaf is 60  in 2011, Shawnee Peak is almost 75. But another Maine company that once built ski jumps and chairlifts is celebrating 175 years.

Hussey Seating Company, based in North Berwick, is quite well known for designing seats for NFL stadiums like the Patriots’ Gillette Stadium and the Sea Dogs’ Hadlock Field, but few know that they built the first chairlift in the East, and some huge ski jumps.

In 1937, The Winter Sports Engineers, a division of Hussey Manufacturing, constructed the first chairlift in the East at Gunstock in New Hampshire. That single chairlift was the second such ski lift in the country following Sun Valley’s chairlift in Idaho in 1936. The Gunstock (Belknap Ski Area) construction was part of the C.C.C. and Works Progress Act under President Roosevelt, and included three ski jumps - the largest was 60-meters. Those jumps built by the Hussey company still exists today, though the largest has become a 70-meter. The single chairlift has since been removed; an authentic single chair is on display at the New England Ski Museum at the base of Cannon Ski Mountain.
 
Most skiers know that Maine was a major manufacturer of early ski equipment – Paris Manufacturing is a well known name for its wooden skis and sleds. Bass was the first ski boot manufacturer. But not many are aware that the Berwick-based Hussey company built the world’s tallest ski jump in the 1939. The monstrous ski jump in Berlin, New Hampshire, was designed with a 172-foot trestle system and was placed on top of a hill, it was gauged as a 65-meter jump and attracted jumpers from Norway and around the world.

According to the Hussey History as read to me by Peter Hussey, now retired from Hussey Seating Company, Hussey’s Winter Sports Engineers built ski jumps in Colorado, Australia and Columbia, South America. In an excerpt from a 1939 ad in the “American Ski Journal,” Hussey’s Winter Sport Engineers specialized in construction of bobsled runs, toboggan chutes, ski chairs, slalom courses, and grand stands for viewing.

This sixth generation family owned company started as a plow company in 1835, adapting to winter and water sports in the 1930’s, and eventually seating manufacturing in 1982. “We don’t make chairlifts anymore,” said Peter Hussey, “but we are still skiers.”

The Hussey family has a proud skiing heritage, Peter was manager of the Gould Academy ski team when he was a student there, and went on to ski on The Colby College Ski Team. Now there are five generations of skiers in the Hussey family, Sugarloafers in fact, including today’s company president Tim Hussey whose grandfather Philip started the Winter Sports Engineering division.

Peter Hussey serves on the Ski Museum of Maine Board of Directors. Hussey Manufacturing, and their Winter Sports Engineering Service, was at the leading edge of the ski industry. Hussey engineers constructed some of this country’s landmark ski facilities in the 1930’s, including the first chairlift in the east and the world’s tallest ski jump.

For a fun day of retro skiing, The Ski Museum of Maine  host their annual Ski Heritage Classic at Sugarloaf in Feb. with an on snow vintage ski parade followed by an après ski reception and auction. I have attended this fundraiser and can vouch for the outstanding ski memorabilia up for bid and the stories told over beer.