Location of McKinney Creek Stadium, Olympic Winter Games 1960 - Modern Olympic Venues on Waymarking.com

While there is a lot of well preserved history of those games in the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, the memory of the location of the cross country sky events has been all but wiped out, had it not been for this tiny exhibition at the location of the former McKinney Creek Stadium.

All the alpine events of the games were held in the Squaw Valley resort - the first and only time at any Olympic Games that all events were in walking distance for all athletes. However, for the Cross-country skiing and Biathlon competitions and for the cross-country part of the Nordic Combined competition, a new stadium, though temporarily, was build 12 miles from Squaw Valley.

All those structures were completely dismantled after the games and all that is left today is one tiny building at the site of the former stadium, hosting was has to be the smallest exhibition of any Olympic event at its original site.

The McKinney Creek Stadium, 250 meters long and 45 meters wide, was built in August of 1959. Located midway between McKinney Creek and General Creek, the stadium consisted of a timing building, six Quonset huts, bleachers for 1,000 spectators and 200 members of the press corps, a scoreboard, flagpoles and fencing.

The timing building held a communications room, the Race Secretary's office, timing staff and equipment. The public address announcer and staff were located on the roof along with 16 radio booths.

Two of the largest Quonset huts were divided into eight rooms each for competitors to change, wax skis and rest. Another Quonset hut was set up as the press room with tables, typewriters, teletypes, telephones and a photographic darkroom. A smaller hut housed administrative personnel and course preparation workers. The fifth hut was designated for ski patrol and course workers. The last hut was used for vehicle maintenance and storage.

The scoreboard stood 25 feet high over all and 54 feet long and the racer's times were shown on the left side of the board. The ten best times were displayed from two interval points relayed from the course. A US flag, an Olympic flag and an Organizing Committee flag flew above the scoreboard. Flags of al lthe nations competing in the VIII Winter Games flew along the east and west sides of the stadium.

Today, a dense new growth of trees covers most of the old Olympic trails. The structures, all temporary were removed shortly fter the games. Much of the land once used for the trail system is now in public ownership.

We wanted to include some pictures of the events held here. After an extensive internet search, we came to the conclusion, that the only remaining pictures of the 1960 cross-country skiing event were indeed those shown at this tiny exhibition.