Looking down at Old Town, you can see Park City’s Town Lift. It’s one of the few places in the U.S. where you can take a chairlift to and from a town’s main street. Here, Park City’s two defining histories—mining and outdoor recreation—meet.
The Town Lift Plaza and pedestrian bridge were built in the late 1990s. Before that, a mining aerial tramway ran here from 1901 to 1953. To the right of the lift, you can still see one of the old steel tramway towers, with others running up the mountain beside today’s chairlift.
The tramway carried ore from the Silver King Coalition Mine down to the lower terminal, known as the Coalition Building, near today’s Town Lift. On the return trip, the buckets carried coal back up the mountain. The Coalition Building burned in 1981, but the Silver King Mine Building farther up the trail was fully restored in 2026.
The Silver King Mine operated for 20 years before the tramway was built. In 1889, prospectors Thomas Kearns and David Keith leased this hillside, as Park City’s mining boom was already underway at the Flagstaff and Ontario mines.
Kearns and Keith went on to great success, and the Silver King became Park City’s richest silver mine, giving this slope the name Treasure Hill. Kearns later became a U.S. Senator and railroad tycoon, and his name still appears around town, including on Kearns Boulevard.
Look again at the old tramway towers. Imagine cables still moving through the mountainside, carrying giant ore buckets up and down the slope. Doesn’t it feel like this place was destined to become a ski resort? The same technology that once hauled ore now carries skiers, snowboarders, and hikers.
Recreation first started appearing here in the 1930s, but the real push came from necessity. By 1963, mining was in serious decline, and a public-private partnership built Treasure Mountain Ski Resort as a way to resuscitate the town’s economy.
When you’re ready, you can continue hiking uphill following the signs to more mining sites or ride the Town Lift up Treasure Hill to the Silver King Mine complex. The chairlift requires an Epic Pass or a day ticket. If you hike, follow the wayfinding signs up the trail. Both routes lead to the Silver King Mine site.