BY KAREN BOSSICK
Learn about the historic photographic images of the Martyn Mallory collection during a free talk organized by the Hailey Public Library on Thursday.
Local historian Rob Lonning, author of “Images of America-Hailey,” will show Mallory’s most iconic images at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 4, upstairs in the Hailey Council Chambers at 115 S. Main St.
Mallory developed an interest in photography as a 9-year-old growing up in Hailey when he photographed the burning of gambling tables on Main Street.
Thirty years before Ansel Adams began taking his black and white photographs of the American West, Mallory traversed the Wood River Valley and the Sawtooth Valley, taking archetypal images on glass plate negatives. He documented the valley’s mining towns and was reportedly the first photographer hired to capture the construction of the Sun Valley Lodge.
Over the years he worked as Blaine County Assessor, for the Forest Service and the pioneering Friedman family.
Mallory’s collection consists of 1,700 negatives and more than 2,000 prints taken of the Wood River Valley from 1900 to 1936.The photos depict Hailey town life and nearby landscapes at the turn of the century.
They were gifted to the Hailey Public library in 1995 by Martyn’s son and daughter-in-law Bill and Rose Mallory, who stored many steamer trunks of Martyn’s photos at their home following the photographer’s death at 56.
Select negatives and glass plates will be on display. And Ryan Gelskey, now a regional history librarian at the Community Library, will explain how the collection is managed to provide public access to the images. Gelskey, a Hailey native, recently completed a Masters in Library and Information Sciences project, which focused on updating the organization, classification and cataloguing of the Mallory collection to make it more accessible.
The presentation is part of the library’s year-long Centennial Celebration of the library’s founding on Feb. 19, 1919.
For more information, call 208-788-2036 or visit www.haileypubliclibrary.org.