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Show Park City, big new dimension, after 100 years of changing Between the man in the yellow yel-low slicker and the hoard of legendary Irish Tommy Knockers, Knock-ers, Park City has had a difficult dif-ficult time of it. But it has made it 100 years of growth this year. In 1969, Park City's centennial centen-nial year, not many of the old-timers old-timers are still around to tell the rapid influx of visitors just exactly what Tommy Knockers are (mythical little men who picked and shoveled in silver mines after the regular shift of miners were in bed asleep), or the man in the yellow slicker slick-er who, to the viewer gulp! was a sure sign of approaching approach-ing death. To Park City's few thousand residents the past and future were combined with the choosing choos-ing of "Mrs. Park City," Blanche Fletcher who probably wouldn't place high in most beauty contests, but who, like her city, has an abundance of inner beauty. Says 80-year-old Blanche, "I admit I am no cheesecake, but I hope to show the spirit of the town. Some people may call me old, same as they do Park, but the spirit i; young." And young it is. Inside the century-old store fronts and homes still evident on Main and other city streets, live a new generation of Parkites dedicated to bringing back the glory of the old days summarized summar-ized in the 1860's by Abraham Lincoln speaking bout the silver sil-ver flowing out of the city's mines, "Utah will become the treasure house of the nation." A centry ago the treasure was silver, resulting in over 100 mines and 900 miles of tunnels. Now the lode is different but no less valuable: snow, and the greatest snow on earth at that. But even skiing isn't new to Parkites. As early as 40 years age area youngsters were thrilling thrill-ing to the swish of powder beneath be-neath wooden barrel slats. In 1926 a national news organization organiza-tion shot film of a Park City ski tournament that turned out to be a, crowd pleaser that it was distributed to more than ,200 theatres nationwide. |