David McCoy (August 24, 1915 – February 8, 2020) was an American skier and businessman who founded the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in 1942.
In 1936, McCoy took a job as a hydrographer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which involved skiing up to 50 miles per day.
In 1938, McCoy got a permit and set up a primitive rope tow on McGee Mountain, near US Highway 395, using parts from a Model "A" Ford truck.
Remnants of McCoy's original rope-tow can be spotted, and the site is marked with a historical marker sign along the current Highway 395.
McCoy and a small group of skiers had to work very hard and dig holes, mix concrete, and install the lift on their own by Thanksgiving 1955.
The original main lodge was expanded and to this day, the upper part of the old exterior rock wall mural, with a white and brown flagstone arrow and skier, can be seen.
By 1973, under McCoy's leadership, the ski area grew to 14 double-chairs, and a second base lodge originally named Warming Hut II was built.
In the first decade of the 2000s, Horizon Airlines, began to offer seasonal service from Los Angeles, Reno, and the San Francisco Bay Area to Mammoth.
McCoy faced adversity in growing the ski area: drought in 1958–59, the 1973 oil crisis, and only 94" inches of snow during the 1976–1977 season, the worst in Mammoth's history.
McCoy turned 100 on August 24, 2015[5] and died on February 8, 2020, at his home in the eastern Sierra Nevada community of Bishop, California at the age of 104.