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Trouble in Toyland: Silverton, Colorado Vs. Mountain Boy Sledworks

By Kristen Lummis, 12-23-10

Downtown Silverton, home of Mountain Boy Sledworks. Photo courtesy of the National Weather Service.

Silverton, Colorado, sits in a high alpine valley, beneath the peaks of the San Juan Mountains. A former mining town, it’s best known in the 21st century as the northern terminus of the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway and as a popular summer tourist destination. Until the 2002 opening of Silverton Mountain, a guided “backcountry” ski area, wintertime economic activity in Silverton was limited.

The town’s isolated: Getting to the nearest larger town, Durango, means going over two mountain passes; it’s a six- to seven-hour drive from Denver, a five-hour drive from Albuquerque. Annual snowfall averages about 200 inches. Silverton could rate as Colorado’s North Pole: a winter wonderland, best accessible by sled. 

It was precisely the remote mountain beauty of Silverton that brought Brice and Karen Hoskin to town in 2002. Their first local business, Mountain Boy Sledworks, began manufacturing locally that year, making woodworker Brice either the town’s Santa Claus or its Elf-in-Chief.

Mountain Boy is a niche sled manufacturer, focusing on traditional wooden designs with updated features such as a “lightning-fast” plastic skids and innovative kick sleds. Mountain Boy produced about 100 sleds in Silverton, by hand, until 2004 when it moved much of its production to China. This year, two craftsmen will make about 500 sleds locally. The sleds are sold worldwide with distribution handled exclusively in Silverton.

So many of the sleds are in Silverton. All are distributed distributed from Silverton. But as of late November, none of them are available for purchase in Silverton.

Following an 18-month dispute with officials over zoning, building codes, occupancy ratings and the sign code, Brice and Karen Hoskin decided not to sell their sleds locally as a means of denying sales tax revenue to the town. Since the inception of the company, Mountain Boy had been selling sleds to locals at wholesale pricing, as much as 50 percent off the retail price.

At the crux of the dispute is whether the Hoskins’ sledmaking enterprise, as well as their other business, Montayna Rum Distillers, conform to the town’s code for businesses within the downtown area.

According to Kim Buck, former director of the San Juan Development Association and now a Mountain Boy Sledworks employee, the Town of Silverton has sought to locate manufacturing enterprises outside the city limits. With assistance from the Silverton Historical Society, an industrial park has been developed within the past few years. Current tenants include Venture Snowboards, Scotty Bob’s Skis, a company that makes and retails parts of old printing presses and a lumber mill. According to Karen Hoskin, Mountain Boy Sledworks attempted to buy the last remaining site at Powerhouse Park, but the deal feel through. Another manufacturing business, a hardware company, is not located at the industrial park, but is outside the city limits.

In 2009, the town issued a stop-work order to Mountain Boy, citing zoning violations. This matter was resolved when the town rezoned Mountain Boy’s sledmaking room, a small space within a much larger building, as a manufacturing zone.

Then came the banner dispute. The town code allows temporary banners to be hung for local, national or religious holidays and special events only. The Hoskins hung a temporary banner advertising a concert at the Montayna location. The town issued them a citation and the Hoskins protested, noting that nearly 20 other businesses were hanging temporary banners and that the town trustees had told them a temporary special-event banner was allowed. They continued to use banners to promote concerts, celebrate the Fourth of July and welcome specific groups of visitors to Silverton. A court decision on Nov. 10 put an end to the banners and an end to sled sales in Silverton.

Currently, 12 Silverton residents derive their primary income from Mountain Boy Sledworks or Montayna Rum Distillers. Silverton Mountain is the largest private sector employer with 40 winter employees. The government sector, which includes all local government and school jobs, employs about 60 people. The year-round population of Silverton is approximately 500.

Having lived nine years in Silverton, the Hoskins have no plans at the moment to move and take their jobs with them.  They love raising their family in Silverton and are proud of their contributions to the local economy. Just don’t expect them to pay sales tax on local sled sales. Until the Hoskins and the town of Silverton remove one another from their respective “naughty” lists, Santa will have to bring in these locally made sleds on his sleigh. 

Kristen Lummis lives on the Western Slope and blogs at braveskimom.com

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