Before Target, Lowe’s, and The Brickyard shopping center, there was something almost impossible on Chicago’s Northwest Side — a ski resort.

In this episode of Lost Chicago, we uncover the strange, nearly forgotten story of Thunder Mountain, the short-lived ski hill that opened at Diversey and Narragansett in 1968. Built on the remains of an old clay pit and brickyard, Thunder Mountain offered rope tows, night skiing, snow guns, a chalet, and a claimed 285-foot vertical drop — all within Chicago city limits.

For one brief moment, Chicagoans could ride the CTA to the slopes, ski above the city, and look out toward the Loop and O’Hare from the top of a man-made mountain.

So what happened?
Why did this bizarre resort disappear so quickly?
And how did a place this unusual vanish beneath a shopping center?

This is the story of Chicago’s lost mountain.