Ski jumping came here in the late 1800's, 1880s by Norwegian immigrants. And some of them settled here and started the-- They called it the Dovre Ski Club in 1886. And that grew, was called the Eau Claire Ski Club in 1908. The next year, the National Ski Association picked Eau Claire to host the national championships. Barney Riley, an Irishman, won the junior class and he was famous because he was non-Scandinavian. And so everybody got involved in it, everybody took it up. Eau Claire's La Moine Batson took it up to the highest levels, competing in the first Winter Olympics, held in Chamonix, France in 1924. And the Flying Eagles formed a junior club in 1932, I believe it was. And the janitor at the Mount Washington or Fourth Ward School at the time was Jimmy Ellingson, and he was a ski jumper. He got them together, and they formed a club-- president, vice president, boys and girls, 10-11 years old, and they basically ran the show. In Eau Claire, it was the thing to do in the '30s, during the Depression, it was a very cheap way to take part in sports. Skis were cheap, and that's about all you needed. A Norwegian, Ole Gently, he made skis and he made skis for most of us. In 1936, hometown champion Jimmy Hendrickson, traveled with the U.S. Ski Jumping Team, and took part in the Winter Olympics, held in Bavaria, Germany. And during the Great Depression, the federal Works Progress Administration, or WPA, built a ski jump next to Eau Claire's 4th Ward School. The need for a ski jump next to the school was mandatory almost because these kids wanted to ski. So they built a scaffold probably 40-, 50-feet high. And that was the first junior jump in town. That was the base of operations. The kids jumped before school, at noon they'd go out and jump, and then they got the lights the second year, I think, and skied all night 'til 9 o'clock or whatever. Nobody got hurt. It was a small hill, but it was a thrill to go down and fly through the air. I don't think you'd see it today, probably from a safety aspect. The sport picked up because it became so popular. Hills were built on all sides of town-- I think there were seven junior jumps in the town during the thirties. The Flying Eagles at that time became so famous they were called upon to go to major hills around the Midwest to perform, and they put on quite a show-- these little kids, on the bigger hills. The two best skiers caught the name of the King and the Queen. The King was Oscar Severson. He was about three-feet ten, but he was just-- His skiing was impeccable. And then the girl, she was Geraldine Hovland at the time, she was in a class of her own among girls. Some of the Flying Eagles grew to compete on Eau Claire's bigger ski jumps, and would inspire a new generation of skiers in the years after World War II. Billy Olson, a Flying Eagle from the 1930s, would go on to compete internationally in the Olympic Games of 1952 and 1956. It was the breeding ground for champions, there was no doubt about it. With the steady development of junior champions, Eau Claire continued to fly with the best at events like the Nationals, held in Westby, Wisconsin in 1956.
Newsreel
"The Nationals are off and away, down and out into space, and down again, as top competitors get away in zero weather before 10,000 fans at Westby, Wisconsin. Once in a while, a ski gets loose and goes on the warpath. Look out! Only man to exceed the 200 foot mark is the winner, Keith Zuehlke, of Eau Claire, the new national champ. In 1970, the Eau Claire Ski Club once again hosted the national championships on a new hill location called Silver Mine.
Announcer
I might remind you also that this is the first time a national tournament has been held in Eau Claire, Wisconsin since 1909.
crowd cheers and applauds
Announcer
With me today is Don Larson, President of the Eau Claire Ski Club. Don, how long have you worked on setting up this national tournament?
Don Larson
Well, it's taken about two years, Aldi, and... Over the decades, ski jumping survived through the efforts of a community of skilled volunteers-- building the slides, and preparing the jumps for practices and events. With their backing, the Flying Eagles Ski Club encouraged the next generation of ski jumpers, like Reed Zuehlke, who visited Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in the White House and competed in the Olympic Games of 1984 and 1988. The Flying Eagles Ski Club, let's hear it! The kid's got talent. He's going to go to the show. Ben Loomis. The tradition continued with Eau Claire Olympian Ben Loomis, who competed in the 2018 Nordic Combined event, pairing ski jumping with cross country racing. And like many kids growing up in Eau Claire, Blair Tomten learned to ski jump on the local hills. Her dad, former U.S. Ski Team jumper, Dave Tomten, taught Blair and her sister Berit the basics of the sport. As teenagers, they would pioneer a new movement, to open up ski jumping competitions to women. In 1995, Flying Eagles Berit and Blair Tomten and Kathy Mauch, jumped in a demonstration event at the world championships-- the first step in a twenty-year quest to bring women's ski jumping into the Olympic Games. Flying Eagle Elisabeth Anderson built on their efforts, joining the U.S. Ski Team, and competing in many international events. And after the Olympic Committee finally approved the sport for women, Elisabeth's sister, Emilee Anderson, competed in the newly-sanctioned event, in the Youth Olympics of 2012-- making Eau Claire and American history.
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