In 1942, Wayne Poulsen, a former star skier from the University of Nevada had acquired 2,000 acres in present-day Olympic Valley, CA, from the Southern Pacific Railroad. In 1946, Poulsen met Alex Cushing a Harvard-trained lawyer, with the political connections and access to capital that would make the resort a success. Shortly before opening in 1949, Poulsen and Cushing had a disagreement over the future of the resort. Cushing ended up controlling the Squaw Valley Ski Corporation that brought the 1960 Winter Olympics to Squaw Valley and transformed Lake Tahoe with his vision for the mountain and innovations in the ski industry. Until his death, Cushing was the founder and chairman of Ski Corporation, the parent company of the Squaw Valley USA.

Cushing modeled Squaw Valley after European resorts by putting pools and lodging on the mountain instead of at the base, and repeatedly brought the latest lift technology to the United States.

Though the 1960 Olympics had practically been promised to Innsbruck, Austria, Cushing went to Paris in 1955 with a scale model of his proposed Olympic site—even though his mountain had only one lift at the time—and persuaded the International Olympic Committee to choose Squaw Valley. It was the first Winter Olympics to be televised live and attracted millions of viewers. The 1960 Winter Games provided a significant boost in visibility that signaled that American skiing had risen to the level expected of European resorts.