Tufts Mountain Club Records

Collection

Call Number: UA216

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Scope and Contents

This collection contains records, photographs, and web crawls related to the Tufts Mountain Club.

Dates

Creation: 1987 -- 2019

Creator

Tufts Mountain Club (Organization)

Language of Materials

English

Access

Open for research. This collection may require review before it is available for use. Please contact DCA for further details.

Conditions Governing Use

Some material in this collection may be protected by copyright and other rights. Please see “Reproductions and Use” on the Digital Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permission to publish. No documentation is available regarding the intellectual property rights in this collection.

Biographical / Historical

The Tufts Ski Club was formed in the fall of 1937, organizing trips for skiers of all levels to hone their skills and take trips off campus into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was originally intended to be a counterpart of similar Outing Clubs at Dartmouth and Middlebury.

The first talk of a Mountain Club was proposed in December of 1939, and backed by the Ski Club. The proposed club would organize trips up to an old farmhouse or shelter in northern New Hampshire. This was accomplished in January of 1940 when the group rented their first house in Campton, New Hampshire; several other houses were rented over the next few months until the purchase of a nine-room, hundred-year-old farmhouse in Campton, New Hampshire that May. During this period, the club merged with the original Ski Club. The club was dismantled from March of 1944 to March of 1945, due to World War II.

A fundamental part of the club has been the existence of a New Hampshire lodge, which serves as a “retreat destination” for both TMC members and general members of the Tufts community. It’s well known for its eventful history, having changed locations multiple times over the years. The original cabin caught on fire on New Year’s Day in 1962 and rendered the house unusable. In 1964, through a combination of the resulting insurance payout, club fundraising, a personal loan co-signed by several members of the Executive Board, and a grant by the University, a new lodge was built, but the resulting structure was abandoned and demolished in 1966 due to the construction of Interstate 93. TMC built a new lodge in 1968, which lasted until 1994 when it was condemned during an inspection as “unsafe.” A new cabin was built in 1999, where it remains in use as of 2018. An addition to the cabin, in the form of a separate Trips Cabin, was constructed in 2009.

During its time, the club has created several traditions which members partake in annually. These include several different weekend trips, including Newcomer’s Weekend, Peak Weekend, and Pass the Torch Weekend. It also includes the celebration of Thanksgiving in the spring, which was started to celebrate the end of exams and to give thanks that no one was injured during the 1962 fire.