Stokes Bolton and the Oil-Derrick Chairlift: How Red River Learned to Ski
When Oklahoma oil man Stokes Bolton rolled into Red River in the 1950s, the town counted barely a dozen year-round residents. He had never skied a run in his life. What he had was an entrepreneur's eye: the steep, snowy slopes rising above town looked like a business waiting to happen. In 1959 he opened the Red River Ski and Summer Area with a rope tow, a poma platter lift, and a chairlift cobbled together from salvaged oil derricks — and a ski town was born.
