Word: squaws
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Tragedy. Cushing first saw Squaw Valley in 1946. hiked into it (there was no road then) with a likable skier and Pan American World Airways pilot named Wayne Poulsen. who had bought up much of the valley's land. Over the bridge table that night, Alec cautiously asked his wife: "How would you like to live in these mountains?" Justine did not look up from her cards. "Are you out of your mind, Cushing?" she inquired icily. But two years later the Cushings and the McFaddens headed west once more to check on Squaw as a possible ski resort...
Despite the tragedy. Cushing was obsessed with opening a ski area, went into partnership with Airman Poulsen to develop Squaw in June 1948. Poulsen supplied the land-640 acres-and Cushing the money-$400,000. Alec and Justine invested $145,000 of their own, got $50,000 from Laurance Rockefeller, the rest from other friends...
Poulsen and Cushing had differences almost from the start. Cushing allowed Poulsen to reserve 42 acres of land for homesites, found belatedly that Squaw Valley Development Corp. was left with only six acres of level ground. Cushing wanted to operate restaurant, bar and lodging facilities at Squaw. Poulsen wanted to lease them out. Cushing went ahead anyway, bought a set of old Air Force barracks, had them trucked into the valley, put the corporation in the hotel business...
Trouble. In Squaw's first five years of operation, avalanches ripped out lift towers three times. The lodge was cut off four times by bridge washouts, flooded out twice, later (in 1956) burned to the ground. Poulsen and Cushing had increasingly sharp differences. The showdown came in October 1949, when, in Poulsen's absence on an international flight for Pan Am, his wife Sandy fired off letters to Squaw stockholders accusing Cushing of mismanagement. A stockholders' meeting was called, and the result was inevitable, since Cushing owned 52% of the stock, his friends another 46%. After...
...opening of Squaw Valley Lodge on Thanksgiving Day, 1949, was a memorable fiasco. Cushing had to hire strikebreakers when his union workmen struck the week of the opening, hooked up plumbing himself. Justine hurriedly summoned the domestic couple from their New York home, pressed a friend into service as a chambermaid. One woman guest arrived early, found Cushing still at work on the plumbing. Snarled Alec: "Madam, come back in three hours, and we'll be ready. Meanwhile, don't bother me." That night everything went wrong. There was no dinner until 10. Only one toilet was working...