(Note: the following article is reproduced
from the Vernal Express, January 14, 1987. A few corrections were
made to the figures.)
Toboggan maker, last of his kind.
Rescue unit saves 6500 per year.
By Steven Wallis
Express News Editor
In the past 200 years there have been
numerous developments in methods of sliding down a steep, snow-covered hill,
but none carry the mystique or the personal valor of a hand-made toboggan -
it's the last of a kind.
From his Maeser
shop, Jim Hendricks has been producing a hickory wood toboggan for the past 14
years. There is no shop like it anywhere in the country, but Hendricks does not
take full credit for the development of the toboggan.
Several 100 years ago, Indians in
northeastern
Made of wood with a curved front, they were
popular mainly for recreation, but in some cases they were used for hauling
cargo.
In the late 1940s, Todd Weems of
Ski Renters Interested
The ski rental people at a nearby resort were
immediately interested in the toboggan and ordered 100 of them. He was
instantly in business. He relied on the help of a neighbor who built row boats
to set up a shop. He hired mostly relatives, and he called his creation a
"Toddboggan".
In five to six years the small operation had
sold several thousand toboggans in
A general building contractor and former
tool-maker of Consolidated Vultee Aircraft in
Building in
Then the demand was for toboggans for
snow-play in sizes of three to eight feet. Eight-footers did not sell well, and
because the lumber came from the mill in random lengths, the longer pieces
began to accumulate.
Rescue Unit born
To utilize the longer pieces, Hendricks
developed a first-aid toboggan. The "Sun Valley Rescue Sled" was a
starting point. He re-designed the unit and added special hardware to attach a
"Stokes Utter" to carry an injured skier safely down the mountain.
The first unit was developed in 1954 and soon
was selling to many ski resorts in the
Not everyone was pleased with the first
units. Ski patrolmen, especially in the East, complained that they were too
heavy, particularly on less steep slopes.
After the hardware was changed from steel to
aluminum and other improvements, the hefty 140-pound unit was trimmed to 70
pounds. The lighter unit began selling in 1960. Today, nearly 700 have been
shipped to 28 states and parts of
With both the snow-play and rescue toboggans,
business continued to grow, and Hendricks hired more help. He employed from 10
to 12 workers every winter. The shop's biggest customers were rental outlets.
In the late 1960s the toboggan business
dropped. Three wheelers, snowmobiles and more and more ski areas changed the
demand for winter recreational products. A "sue-happy public" made it
difficult for rental shops to retain insurance, and soon that toboggan market
dried up.
The population explosion hit
"Likes the clean water, peaceful
rural setting"
Hendricks began to get itchy feet, and after
a year of looking, he decided to move to Vernal. In 1969 Vernal was
"rather a sleepy little town" - everything closed up on Sunday, there
was clean mountain water, no freeways, no railroads, no smog and the winters
were not too bad. It was just what Hendricks was looking for. He moved.
The first rescue toboggan used a first-aid
litter purchased from "war surplus stores," but soon that source
dried up. He had to develop a jig and tools to make his own litters. To date he
has made over 1,000 of the special basket-like units that fit on the rescue
toboggan.
He used to hire a welder and a machinist, but
now he does all the work. All parts are made from scratch.
Over the years he has supplied about 1,100
units to over 150 major ski areas from
He maintains a small supply of recreation
toboggans in his shop at 1214 North 3000 West, but the majority of his toboggan making efforts now focus on the rescue unit.
The business has not made him rich, but the
work is something he knows and enjoys. Now entering his "golden
years," he still has a steady hand on the acetylene torch, and he machines
all the metal parts used to hold the litter to the toboggan.
10000 in a Lifetime
He has made over 10,000 toboggans in his
lifetime, and now prides himself on being "the last of the wood toboggan
makers" as toboggans have disappeared from the marketplace.
"To my know ledge, there is no other in
the
After 34 years in the toboggan making
business, Hendricks is eyeing retirement. He has just enough materials in stock
for 50 more rescue units.
He is tempted to just close up shop, but if
the right man should come along, he says he would not hesitate a moment to sell
out and share the secrets he has learned over the years of toboggan making.
No, he would not totally stop working with
wood and metal, but he would let go of his life-long work just enough to call
it a retirement.
He is facing the fact -- "I can't go on
forever."
Watch the YouTube
Video “The Last Toboggan Maker” from a news broadcast (approximately 1979)
when Jim decided to retire.
Jim Hendricks passed away in the fall of
1989, just before his 75th birthday. His wife Virginia and son Paul
carried on the family business until
Paul Hendricks eventually moved to
The jig for making the toboggans along with
the last complete rescue unit were sold to Randall Edgar of Bellevue, Idaho,
who is using the jig to make and repair toboggans to keep the ski area fleet of
rescue toboggans working. That story can
be found at:
http://archives.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005146138#.WEijILmiCSp