“He knew how to get in doors, and that was the key.”

“He’d been raising money in the oil business and he knew a lot of wealthy people,” Higbie said. “Jack Tweedy (another founder) turned to Caulkins and said, ‘George, why don’t you raise the money for Vail?’ And he said, “Well, OK.'”įorming the Caulkins Securities Corporation, Caulkins led the charge to raise that initial seed money by finding more investors through what friends and family say was a bottomless reserve of personal charm and strong connections. “I remember sitting in a meeting, maybe in early 1960,” Higbie said. Wall Street, he said, wasn’t interested in financing a ski area in Colorado, and they had to look elsewhere. He recalled Monday how the group realized they were going to need at least $1 million to get the lifts turning. Harley Higbie, an early partner in the oil business with Caulkins, and another Vail founder, emphasized the fact that Caulkins was involved very early in the process. “It’s almost a miraculous story, how it all happened.” “Everyone contributed in their own way,” he said. “George and the rest of us worked really hard to help Peter do a better job,” Hauserman said, noting that the eight original board members of Vail Associates “got along like a million dollars.”

While Peter Seibert is credited with the vision to get Vail on the map, it was Caulkins’ business savvy and money-raising ability ” combined with the expertise of the other founders ” that kept the project moving. “He raised the bulk of the money and he had all kinds of ideas in the beginning.” “George probably made the greatest contribution to the fact that Vail exists today,” Hauserman said. According to Hauserman, it was Caulkins’ many contacts that kept Vail alive in the late 1950s and early ’60s.

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