Enterprise Publisher Jim Loeb, in a brief editorial, easily explains the spirit and hard work involved in this Jan. 2, 1954 edition that I have been trying to explain in the last two columns.

An excerpt from that editorial:

“This is the first issue of The Enterprise in 1954. It is much more than just a special issue of our daily newspaper devoted to Winter vacations. It represents the cooperative effort of an area — one of the most magnificent in the world — to tell its own story.

“We wish we could spare the space to single out each individual contributor for special thanks. Our readers will see many of their names in the by-lines of the articles or in the credit lines in the pictures. To all these men and women who have contributed their talents, knowledge and efforts go our thanks — and the thanks to the people of the area.

“A special word of gratitude to a special kind of fellow. He probably knows more about the Adirondacks than anyone alive. In the big city he is known as William Chapman White. But those of us in this area know him affectionately as Bill White. And it has been Bill’s ideas and editing that has been responsible for much of what is good in this issue.

“To the merchants of the area who had the imagination and the spirit to cooperate, and to the regular members of The Enterprise staff who worked long extra hours.”

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A word or two from

Bill White

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(Up from the Sitzplatz)

“It always comes as a shock to anyone to know he was born too soon. Any well-preserved parent of 45 or 50 realizes it as he stands on one of today’s ski hills. Years ago when he was a boy, he had his choice of skates for the pond or sleds, sometimes just a soapbox on runners, for sliding down hills. (In the 1940’s Saranac Lake closed Olive Street hill once in a while for kids sliding.) The ski was still a Scandinavian secret weapon.

“Books on child raising always urge that fathers share their son’s activities. In the Winter forty years ago that wasn’t so hard, or so expensive. Most fathers could go out on the pond and show junior how to cut a figure eight. No particular skill was needed to coast downhill on a sled: those fathers who went all out in their camaraderie and tried bellywhopping deserved the poultices and plasters that followed.”

Following are short takes from longer stories in an attempt to feature a few more contributors to this special edition.

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Art Devlin praises

local ski jumps

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“The best skiing for the expert to be held in Lake Placid, frankly, is for ski jumpers, in my opinion. And that is not just because I’m a ski jumper myself. I’ve competed all over this country and most of Europe and I’ve had a chance to compare this region with many others.

“Lake Placid has five of the finest jumps in the country. One of them, the Intervales (site of the present jumps) jump which was built for the 1932 Olympics, is agreed among jumpers to be the most perfectly constructed jump in the world.

“We have turned out good material here and offered top competitors to skiing competition, but with facilities like this Lake Placid could be the ski-jumping center of the country.

“Two of these jumps are right behind the high school and kids can clamp on their skis for a few minutes of practice any lunch hour or for the few minutes of sunlight after school. And there’s no better training in the world for kids growing up than competition in a sport like ski-jumping.”

The special issue also carried stories of bobsledding history by Jim Bickford, formerly on U.S. Olympic bobsled teams; a history of skiing by Ronald M. MacKenzie — soon to be on his way to Sweden as coach of the U.S. jumping squad at the 1954 FIS competitions.

The front page carried a story by Clarence Potvin, president of the Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce, covering the winter activities in his community; Bob Boyea had a great story about speed skating in the area and a world history of that sport; then a long Saranac Lake story with no byline headlined — “Saranac Lake Ideal for Sports in Winter.”

Next on Page One was a round-up of the events of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival set for Feb. 12 to 14 …

“To the metropolis of the North Country and the Adirondacks will come top contestants in skiing, skating, sled dog racing and other sports.

“There will be a parade of sixty or seventy floats, a great variety of bands from 100 miles around including Canada. The town will be gaily decorated and there will be an Old Home Week party Friday night and the gala Carnival Ball at the Hotel Saranac with the crowning of the Carnival King and Queen. (1954 Royalty — Popular singers of the day — Johnny Desmond and Shirley Harmer. Previous Kings and Queens had been Saranac Lake High School seniors.)”

So there you have it — the best we could do reducing thousands and thousands of words into three columns of about 3,000 words. Hardly any photos back then. In a future column I will explain what went into getting out The Enterprise every day and the difficult task to actually publish a picture unless it was given to us in a special format.

Not nearly as much fun as years later when we had a full-fledged photo operation under ace photographer Bill McLaughlin and a state-of-the-art dark room.

How else could we print a photo of an ostrich with the head of a chicken running through the airport after escaping from McCarthy’s Poultry farm (just up the road from the airport)? A few chickens having gulped down some strange hormone that had gotten mixed in with the new bags of chicken feed apparently created their gigantic size. Oh, we also published real photos. Yours ’till the kitchen sinks.