The VIII Olympic Winter Games of 1960 commemorated a century of sport skiing in California. By 1860 the Sierra Nevada - particularly at the mining towns of Whiskey Diggings, Poker Flat, Port Wine, Onion Valley, La Porte, and Johnsville, some 60 miles north of Squaw Valley - saw the first organized ski clubs and competition in the Western Hemisphere.

Citation from California Office of Historic Preservation