Brighton Ski Jumps – Brighton

The Brighton Area Historical Society has a page devoted to the Hall brothers and Brighton’s ski jumps. It relates the story of Henry Hall, born in Ishpeming in 1893, who began his jumping there and went on to win the World Amateur Championship in 1913, the National American Championship in 1914, and the National Professional Championship in 1916, all in Minnesota. He set the world record with a jump of 203′ in 1917 in Steamboat Springs, CO.

In the 1920′s, Hall and his 5 brothers lived in Detroit. They formed the Detroit Ski Club and in 1929 purchased land on a sand hill 1 mi. northeast of Brighton just off Flint Rd. which was M-23 at the time. In 1935, the Michigan State Ski Club was formed and started building a jump at the site. The steel-framed jump was 130′ high, the tallest in the nation at that time. The hill was 300′ long with a 100′ drop. They also planned to build a 50′ jump and a 300′ toboggan slide. (Obviously, from the picture below, they did construct the 50′ jump.)

Contests at the new jump were scheduled for February, 1936. The first two were canceled because of snow and weather problems. In the third contest Henry Hall had a terrible fall at the end of the run-out, fracturing his hip and sustaining other injuries. He would have been 42 years old. He spent weeks in hospital and was not expected to walk again. He never jumped in competition again but continued jumping until the 1972 and x-c skiing until 1982. He died in 1986, which would have made him 93 years old. Six years after his accident at Brighton, he and his brother Clarence made a tandem jump at the Rochester hill to a great cheer form the crowd.

In 1937, the Brighton jumps were sold to the Detroit Winter Sports Club to be dismantled and reconstructed at their Rochester site (Bloomer Park). The jumping area in Brighton is now the Old Dominion housing development.

The picture below is from www.waterwinterwonderland.com/skiresorts.aspx:

Ski Jumps at Brighton, Michigan