Year Pope Julius I and other religious leaders specified December 25th as the official date of the birth of Jesus Christ: 320 AD
Year in which the Christmas Tree is introduced at Strasbourg Cathedral: 1539
Year Alabama became the first state in the US to make Christmas a legal holiday: 1836
Estimated number of copies of Bing Crosby’s version of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” – the best selling single of all time – has sold: in excess of 50 million copies worldwide
Probability of one inch or more of snow on the ground on December 25th in Old Forge: 97% Year in which F. M. Chapman proposed the first a Christmas bird census: 1900
Number of Christmas Bird count participants in 2000: 50,000
Year in which Santa’s Workshop theme park in Wilmington, NY opened: 1949
Approximate number of daily newspapers who reported on the opening of Santa’s Workshop: over 700 dailies in the U.S. and Canada
Approximate number of movie theater-goers introduced to Santa’s Workshop via a Pathe Newsreel: 30 million
Number of visitors on opening day, July 1, 1949: 212
Number of visitors on September 2, 1951: over 14,000 perhaps as many as 20,000
Year Robert Reiss closes Santa’s Workshop, Wilmington, following a failed business deal: 2001 (it was reopened the following year by Northpole Associates who purchased the facilities in 2005
Year in which Arthur Gillette opened Christmas City, USA theme park on Rt. 9 near Lake George: 1963
Year in which Christmas City, USA changed its name to Magic Forest: 1965
Photo: ABC Sportscaster Jim McKay with Santa at Santa’s Workshop in 1980.
Sources: Adirondack Chronology (pdf), Santas.Net, Guinness Book of World Records, Northeast Regional Climate Center, Santa’s Workshop.
Year of the first known winter ascent of Mount Marcy: 1893
Number of recorded “Winter” 46ers as of May 2010: 467
Year volunteers cut the first trails on Gore Mountain: 1931
Approximate number of ski facilities, downhill and cross-country in the Adirondacks today: 30
Year in which Jim Goodwin and Bob Notman made the first ascent of the Chapel Pond Slab: 1936
Approximate number of ice climbing routes today: 100 on 13 major cliffs
Year in which Polaris Industries’ introduced the “Pol-Cat,” the first modern snowmobile: 1954 Approximate number of miles of groomed snowmobile trails on state land today: 800
Year of the first winter sports festival in Lake Placid: 1914
Amount of state taxpayers money ORDA received in 2010: $5.6 million
Amount ORDA contributes to the local economy: about $300 million
Estimated number of people employed by the winter economy in the Old Forge area: 500 to 1,000
Sources, Press Republican, Climate Change in the Adirondacks, ORDA, Lee Manchester, “Santa’s Historians” [pdf], John Warren “Adirondack Snowmobile History”.
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