When Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002, nearby Park City was the venue for ski jumping, Giant Slalom and Snowboarding. Its reputation as a ski center is top notch. But 100 years ago, it had no almost no skiing heritage, in fact it didn’t even have a ski shop. How do I know this? Easy, the plaque on the Emmet(Bud) Wright Statue told me so. Who was he? He was a telephone lineman responsible for repairs in this rugged area and travelled his territory on a ten foot long homemade pair of skis. The monument consists of a bronze statue of Wright carrying his pair of skis. The accompanying plaque reads: EMMETT«BUD» WRIGHT In 1920, Emmett«Bud» Wright made his living skiing, but not as a ski patrolman or ski racer. Bud worked as a lineman for the local telephone company, traveling the mountains surrounding Park City on his 10 foot-long, handmade skis, repairing the phone lines. When Bud broke one of his skis, he was forced to use skis of two different lengths because no ski shops existed in Park City.
