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Averell Harriman

America’s very first alpine ski resort—they invented the chair lift there—is still as good as it gets

A sunlit terrace by a graceful house in the countryside near Middleburg, with the Virginia hills shimmering in the distance.

Was it science, sport, or the prospect of a round-the-world railroad that sent the tycoon off on his costly Alaskan excursion?

The railroad tycoon Edward Harriman was a man of large vision and mysterious ways. When, on a day in March of 1899, he strode into the Washington office of Dr. C. Hart Merriam, chief of the U.S.

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