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About Park City
Park City is the premier upscale community in Utah, due to its scenic location in the Wasatch Mountains, easy access to Salt Lake City, and its recreation and tourism resources. At 7,040 feet in elevation, the downtown part of the city is in a narrow canyon surrounded by forested mountain slopes. With heavy snowfalls in the winter, an abundance of runoff keeps the scenery green long into the summer. Park City has three ski resorts, Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort, and The Canyons Resort. Many of the activities of the 2002 Winter Olympics took place here.
Park City is a mining town that was founded in 1870, after lead, gold and silver were discovered. The city grew quickly in its early years, but the boom ended around the turn of the century, brought on by an explosion in the Day West Mine which killed 34 miners, a drop in silver prices, and general economic malaise. By the 1950s, it was listed as a ghost town.
Treasure Mountain Ski Resort opened in 1963, beginning a new era fed by tourism at Park City. Soon the old buildings of the mining town were converted into tourist shops and it became a vacation resort in the summer. In the 1980s it became a getaway for wealthy people working in Salt Lake City, and the population grew rapidly. As of the year 2000, there are 7,371 people living in Park City, with more in the surrounding area, and it has continued to grow since then.