Hurricane Ski Area Patch, Falmouth (Lost Mountain) — c. 1960s

A vintage Hurricane ski patch from Falmouth, Maine, estimated to date from the 1960s or 70s, a pointed shield with a red merrowed border — HURRICANE in navy across the top over FALMOUTH, MAINE, a skier in red mid-turn, one small green fir, white peaks behind, and a blue wave curling up out of the bottom corner.

A small hill just outside Portland that ran in the middle of the century and then stopped. No lifts now, no lodge, no sign at the road, and nothing on the ground to tell you anything ever happened there.

A few thousand people learned to ski on it. That is not a guess — that is simply what a hill near a city does for twenty or thirty years. Every one of them has a first-day story and almost every one of those stories has now gone with the person who had it.

Hurricane is the pure case of what this whole catalog is about. There is no building to photograph, no historical society file, no anniversary to mark. There is a name, a location, and a patch with a skier on it, and if the patch goes, there is a name and a location.

Portland has grown out toward it in every direction since. Whatever that hill was, it is somebody's neighborhood now.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge. Photos are the condition report.