OCR Text |
Show ...And Reflects a Bit About Park City bring more services to tne area so people don't have to do as much commuting. "I'm one of those people that doesn't believe that all growth is bad. ..I've seen it when times were so tough that people just walked out of their houses and left everything behind." Editor's Note: Mayor Jack Green came to Park City in 1926 and during the next 52 years watched as the town went from a mining boom-town, boom-town, to near ghost town, to born again ski resort. In an interview with the Record. jSee related story this page, the major looked back over the town's transition to a tourist-oriented economy. "We had tic where io go but up," says Mayor Green of the decade of the 1950's. when declining mining activity reduced reduc-ed the local population from 5.000 to less than 1,200. "People had no enthusiasm for anything, and that spirit permeated the entire population," popula-tion," he said of the times when many of the buildings on Main Street were vacant. At one point. Green noted then Governor J. Bracken Lee advised Park City residents that the most practical thing to do might just to leave and let it die. They didn't. "People bowed their backs and didn't take the governor's advice," said Green, who later became involved in the initial planning that led to Park City becoming divorced from the mining economy. As a member of the original Park City economic development develop-ment committee. Green and others helped make application during the Kennedy administration administra-tion for an economic development develop-ment grant to build a ski resort. The $2-million grant was used by ihe mining company to construct the first resort building build-ing and ski lift in 1962. In the development boom that followed, the mayor admits that something of the old-town identity may have been sacrificed sacrific-ed to the pragmaiics of economic survival. "li depends on how old you arc. If you're a young person you can take these changes in lifestyle." For others it has been more difficult to adjust. And Green estimated over 50 percent of the people living here in the 1960's have left, taking with them the old days when "everybody knew everybody else and no one locked their doors." "It is regrettable that anywhere any-where there is rapid growth it changes the lifestyle of the community." But even so, the mayor doesn't think Park City will ever lose its identity, to become just another bedroom community of Salt Lake City. "Even commuters have children child-ren in school, and their interests will be where their children are," he said. Allowing that growth has to be controlled, Green stated one advantage is that growth will |