Purgatory Resort will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, but the community institution and winter economic driver might never have come to be without founder Raymond Twomey Duncan. He died Friday at his home in Denver at age 84.
Duncan had moved to Durango with his family in 1958, where he founded Duncan Oil.
A chance remark in 1964 that it was a shame Durango’s youth ski team, which was starting to win some awards, didn’t have a good place to practice led to a major commitment.
A year later, he had navigated U.S. Forest Service and Small Business Administration bureaucracies, encouraged a local group of businessmen to form the San Juan Development Corp. to help finance the endeavor, and hired Chester “Chet” Anderson to serve as general manager.
Duncan had set an aggressive schedule, but the weather did not cooperate. Anderson spent his first day in May on snowshoes laying out ski trails, and six weeks later, as he finished the job, he was still on snowshoes.
It rained all summer, so that by the second week of August, rainfall for the summer hit 14 inches, 8 inches above normal. In 2009, as he was being inducted into the Durango Winter Sports Hall of Fame, Duncan said he remembered once being very discouraged by all the setbacks in founding the ski area.
“I began wavering in my resolve, wondering if this was a dream that was not meant to be,” he said. “I was walking down Main (Avenue) with Dolph Kuss, who told me one day, 50,000 skiers would be walking down that street.”
He remembered one of his missteps, when he offered 10 percent discounts on season passes to members of the Durango Ski Club, a predecessor to the Durango Winter Sports Foundation. All the local skiers joined the club, so they all got the discount.
The impact of Purgatory on Durango was greater than providing a place to ski. Durango’s tourist season essentially lasted from Memorial Day to Labor Day before 1965, so the addition of five months of revenues ramped up all kinds of businesses. Having a ski area nearby also turned out to be a good recruiting tool – both for students and faculty – for Fort Lewis College.
To increase the summer season at Purgatory, Duncan was instrumental in the founding of Music in the Mountains, which is going into its 30th year, as well as Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.
The Duncan family moved to Denver in 1967, where Duncan further pursued the oil and gas business.
Born to Velma Twomey and Walter Duncan Sr. in South Bend, Indiana, in 1930, Duncan graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1952 with a degree in philosophy. He joined the Marine Corps and fought in the Korean War, ending his military career with the rank of captain.
In 1970, he accepted an invitation to visit the Napa Valley, which led to his next interest, Silver Oak Winery. Partnering with winemaker Justin Meyer after an “agreement over a case of beer and a handshake,” the two decided to undertake a single-minded pursuit of cabernet sauvignon, unusual at the time.
His sons Tim and David Duncan now maintain his philosophy of constant improvement to preserve the winery for future generations.