According to the Boyne company history: In 1947, Everett Kircher, of Detroit, frustrated by a lack of skiing opportunity in Michigan, bought some hilly land near Boyne Falls for $1. He moved his family north, leaving his job in his parent’s Studebaker dealership and began clearing slopes. He bought a used single place chairlift from Sun Valley (in 1936 it had been the first chairlift ever constructed) for $2000 and installed it in time to open the Boyne Mountain Ski Club on New Years Day, 1948. The gears on the lift froze up the first day and they had to shovel snow out of the woods onto the slopes, but they made it through the first season. That summer, Kircher modified the single place chair into a double place chair.
Kircher was a master of marketing and hired Stein Eriksen, gold medalist at the 1952 Olympics, to head up the ski school. Eriksen soon left for Sugarbush Resort in Vermont, but recommended Austrian Othmar Schneider, another Olympic gold medalist, to replace him. Schneider brought in highly trained Austrian ski instructors and established the tradition of Austrian Ski Schools at Boyne resorts.
Boyne Mountain is still operating as one of Michigan’s premier ski resorts. If you have information about the early days of skiing at Boyne Mountain, please post it or send it to us via the directions on the About MILSAP page.
MILSAP 
Who can ever forget Everett Kircher and his general manager, Chuck Moll, waiting for you to get off the lift of the Hemlock chair so they could check your ticket!!! Can you even imagine? And, this was a regular occurrence at least through the 70″s…..
I was hired by Everett to complete the construction on the Alpine Golf Course. The architect was never on site. I was given total responsibility to make sure that the 1st tee on top of the mountain would function. I personally sat on a bulldozer and designed and built the 1st tee complex. I also did all of the contouring on all of the greens. It was my talent that created the smooth putting surfaces.
I was also the one that argued with Everett about the aerial map provided for engineering on the irrigation system. We found pressures of over (200) lbs and I said we needed another pressure reducing station. On a Sunday when no one else was working, Everett and myself took elevation shots of the golf course and he agreed with me that the topo was wrong. I have many memories of the erosion we endured and Everett was always, always accommodating and encouraging. We finally conquered the sever summer thunder storms and today many golfers enjoy this treasure. I am now “82” years old but still have pictures of those days.
Reggie Sauger Directorhouse4real@gmailcom
We would love to have you share some of those pictures with us, Reggie.
one note… Everett purchased some of the land from Don Sheets who owned and operated the Hotel Dillworth in Boyne City.
In the early 70’s I was hired by Chuck Moll to run NasStar races on the weekends… my home away from home was the Kandahar Barn (just down the road south of Boyne) which was owned and operated by Sid Cole, a professional aerial photographer from the Detroit area. Sid was what a site in a coonskin hat and big bushy beard… a very very nice man.