Jo Tso

At this time of year when ski operators, even in the high Sierra Nevadas and Cascades, no longer are keeping their lifts operating, I find myself thinking of Jo Tso, a prosperous attorney and entrepreneur who operated a ski area in the resort community of Ellenville, N.Y.
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Tso, owner of Mount Cathalia, interested me at once.He was the only Chinese ski operator in America.

Adding to my surprise was that he had known Chou En Lai, the Chinese premier.They had first met in 1941, when Tso was a high school student.
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Tso, it developed, had an interesting past.He had been an infantryman in Chiang Kai-Shek's army.He had migrated to the United States at 21 and worked for the War Department (the predecessor of the Department of Defense).He then had been moved to Louisiana to train Chinese pilots to fly American military aircraft.

In May of 1946, Tso attained the rank of captain in the Air Force.He subsequently was the recipient of the Medal of Freedom from President Truman for "meritorious service which has aided the United States in the prosecuting of the war against the enemy."

Tso went on to get degrees from the universities of South Carolina and Wisconsin.Then he studied international law at Columbia.He had his first contact with skiing while in Wisconsin, but only as an observer.

Particularly interested in the real estate business, he became owner of an old resort hotel in Ellenville.Early in the 20th century it had been a popular summer retreat for the elite.

The idea of creating a ski area on the property soon followed.It offered skiers up-ski rides of only 2,000 feet and snowmaking that serviced 10 of its acres.After being shown the area's facilities, I asked Tso about the resort's unusual name.

"Cathay means China," he explained."Adding a little Greek to it, means 'a little bit of China'."

Tso, however, gave up on his little bit of China after four years.He leased it to two ski enthusiasts who operated it on a part time basis until 1974, when it formally closed.Nearby resort hotels had created their own little ski centers for their guests, eliminating much of Mount Cathalia's business.

"It just became too expensive to keep open," Tso, now an octogenarian, told me recently.