Snowboard history timeline
1965 — Sherman Poppen invents the Snurfer for his daughter by bolting two skis together.
1970 — East Coast surfer Dimitrije Milovich starts developing snowboards based on surfboard design with a rudimentary idea of how skis work. The boards had metal edges.
1971 — According to Milovich, he is granted a patent for his snowboard design so he could sell the idea to ski companies. The patent didn't expire until 1988, and Milovich declines enforcing the patent with other companies.
1969-1972 — Bob Webber spends several years trying to obtain a patent for his early "skiboard" design and gets it in 1972. He later sells the patent to Jake Burton Carpenter.
1975 — Dimitrije Milovich sets up Winterstick production in Utah. The metal edges from his early boards are removed because Milovich was riding powder over his head and didn't need them. Milovich also develops a swallowtail board based on the same design in surfboards and one year later a double-edged design for which he obtained a patent.
1975 — Milovich and Winterstick are written up in the March issue of Newsweek and have a two-page photo spread in Powder magazine, giving snowboarding some early national exposure.
1977 — Jake Burton Carpenter moves to Stratton Mountain, Vt., working nights as a bartender and designing the prototypes for what will later be Burton Snowboards during the day.
1977 — Milovich obtains a written confirmation from Petit-Morey and Kendall Insurance, the insurance brokers for America's ski resorts, that snowboards are in fact covered under regular ski liability.
1978 — Milovich says that by this year he sells Wintersticks in 11 different foreign countries.
1978 — Chuck Barfoot develops a fiberglass prototype snowboard, and he and Bob Webber take it out to Utah for a test run.
1979 — Paul Graves appears riding a Snurfer in the first TV snowboarding commercial for LaBatt's beer that runs four years in Canada and the northern United States.
1979 — Mark Anolik discovers the Tahoe City halfpipe while nosing around behind the Tahoe City dump. This becomes known as the world's first snowboard halfpipe and attracts the likes of Terry Kidwell, Keith Kimmel and photographers from the skateboard magazines.
1980 — Burton and Winterstick both utilize a P-Tex base on their prototype boards, introducing ski technology to the industry.
1981 — Modern competitive snowboarding begins with a small contest held at Ski Copper in Leadville, Colo.
1982 — Paul Graves organizes the National Snowsurfing Championships at Suicide Six Ski Area in Woodstock, Vt., featuring slalom and downhill. This is the first time riders from all over the country compete against each other, including rivals Tom Sims and Jake Burton Carpenter. The contest draws media coverage from Sports Illustrated, "Today" and "Good Morning America."
1982 — Winterstick closes shop having sold fewer than 1,000 boards in its six-year run.
Source: TransWorld Snowboarding