History of Snow Making
I always enjoy SAM and find it full of most interesting articles. I was particularly intrigued with Ericksen’s article on snowmaking, as I rented the first air compressors used by Larchmont after Phil accidentally made some snow one Wednesday afternoon in 1950. This led to the rental of Worthington compressors for Commonweath Country Club—Jenco Hill (Marlboro, Mass.), Boston Hill, Mittersill etc. etc.
Subsequent to all this I got involved with Bill Eustis and Dr. Howell in the Hedco deal. Consequently, I was very surprised that no mention was made of Dr. Wallace E. Howell (the wellknown rainmaker) in the article. It was Dr. Howell who developed the nucleating device which really is the heart of airless snowmaking. Finally I was the VW dealer who sold Hedco the VW engines.
Inadvertently, Wally and I made some “snow” by using a grinding wheel to break up the water to 25 microns then blowing it up in the air hoping to find a freezing nucleus. We also tried the rain-making technique of introducing silver iodide molecules into the air and water mixture.
Anyway, seems like Dr. Howell should have gotten some credit in that otherwise most interesting and informative article.
Harry G. Pollard
Harry G. Pollard was also previously the National Director of the National Ski Patrol System.
Ed Note: The May issue of SAM contained a piece by Technical Editor, Nils Ericksen, on the history of snowmaking. Predictably, there has been considerable disagreement on the very early facts. Many of the points of contention have to do with a value judgment of “Which was the first successful commercial snowmaking?” Ericksen wisely stayed away from any attempt to answer this judgmental question, and did not concern himself over whether the snow produced at Mohawk Mt. in December 1949 constituted a “Successful” system. (It is generally agreed it did not.) He merely stated that this was the first time the process of making machine-made snow was used for the purpose of skiing.
Those like Mike Strauss, ski writer for the N.Y. Times, who insist that the Concord had the first successful snowmaking system, and that earlier ones had been flops, may well be right, but that isn’t the historical point Ericksen was making.
On the subdject of “airless” snowmaking, however, SAM acknowledges some patent details were incorrect or incomplete, as pointed out by Jim VanderKelen of SMI:
“Patent 3,610,527 was issued to Ericksen, Wollin and Zaunere. This patent describes putting water on the back of a rotating fan. This patent was and is exclusively licensed to SMI.
“Patent 3,703,991 and 2 other patents were issued to Eustis & Howell on a ducted fan with air/water nozzles inside the duct. These patents are owned by Hedco, a division of Dewey Electronics.
“Patent 3,596,465 was issued to Jacob and assigned to Linde. This patent covers a series of air/water guns positioned around the downstream periphery of a ducted fan.”
Also, for historical accuracy, Joe Tropeano of Larchmont Engineering, points out that he filed for an “airless” method and machine for producing artifical snow on August 26, 1957, whereas Ericksen’s article showed A.W. Hanson as filing in 1958 “for the first patented airless snowmaking.” However, Tropean’s became what is known as an “abandoned” application when, in Tropeano’s words, “I did not bother to pursue it to a final patent because there were too many moving parts to do a simple job.”
