STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Meghan Flanz looked the part as she stepped into The Writers Corner in the Blaine County Historical Museum.

Dressed in a black flapper dress, she fit perfectly in the corner inspired by the literary cafes and bookshops of 1920s Paris, where Hailey native Ezra Pound and famed Ketchum writer Ernest Hemingway crossed paths for the first time.

“I got this dress to attend a Taylor Swift concert in New Orleans--everyone tries to dress as Taylor Swift, and one day she wore a flapper dress,” said Flanz, as a news reel shot during the 1920s rolled in the background. “And it fit the occasion tonight. I love this new corner. And I love the fact that both authors are being properly recognized for their Blaine County connection.”

Flanz was among a multitude of Wood River Valley residents who turned out last week for A Night at the Museum where attendees had a chance to look over new exhibits while sipping  Old-Fashioned cocktails and nibbling hors d’oeuvres prepared by the museum’s executive director Rebecca Cox and her children Titus and Charlotte.

Mike White eschewed the music set out for the museum’s player piano to play the ivories himself. And the Colla Voce women’s singing group even dropped in for a few numbers.

Board member Jane Rosen lamented how the museum had lost a $25,000 America250 in Idaho grant that the Idaho State Historical Museum had promised so the museum could have a professional design, build and sign an exhibit of political buttons dating back to the 1700s. The new exhibit was to have celebrated the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“It’s the second largest political button collection in the nation next to the Smithsonian’s,” she said. “But they said it did not ‘comport’—they used the word ‘comport’—with their theme after considering legislative intent.”

But Rosen took solace in a new exhibit celebrating Hailey’s Snug Bar, a saloon that was established in the early 1900s and endured into the early 1990s when Rosen moved to the valley.

“Look, they even have a guest book signed by Ernest Hemingway,” she said pointing to Hemingway’s signature in which he wrote, “Best luck, Ernest Hemingway, Cuba,” in rounded writing.

The Snug collection includes an Oldtimer Pipe collection featuring pipes that made their way to Idaho from as far away as China and Germany. Al Lewis displayed more than a thousand pipes at The Snug, which was called “House of a Thousand Relics” for all the collections he kept there

The collection includes a bank robber’s pipe and a turn briar pipe used by an early prospector who always wanted to dig “for another foot,” confident he would hit that vein of silver and lead ore that he never did.

There also is a letter by Ezra Pound’s mother to her mother in which she said she could not help but think of the old patriarchs looking over into the Land of Canaan during a drive to the Camas Prairie. Upon returning to Hailey, Mr. Pound nearly missed his train to Ketchum  bound for the Alturas mine, she wrote, “But I waved a handkerchief and it halted.”

Other historical objects of note include “Maps of Early Idaho,” an atlas featuring interesting maps of overland stage routes, early towns and wagon roads.

The Blaine County Historical Museum, which opened in 1964, is housed in Hailey’s oldest building, its adobe walls having survived a fire that consumed all the wooden stores on Main Street in the late 1800s when it was Simon Moses Friedman’s mercantile.

Cox and her board would like to expand the museum utilizing adjacent property. They’d also like to expand to year-round operating hours from its current May to October schedule and increase community programming.

“It’s a really wonderful museum, but we need younger people to get involved, and we need to raise the roof and expand. We have so much in storage,” said Betty Grant.

“What they have in the museum is so fascinating and it’s so important to be presented well,” said Titus Cox, a high school student who is homeschooled. “In our town, mining is pretty significant and the ski resort, too, so it’s good to have a place to talk about those.”

“I’m thinking of lots of educational things I can do with the kids in here,” added Mary Gervase, a retired educator who just joined the museum board.

As she studied The Literary Corner, Grant recalled how she worked in the Ram Restaurant when people like Ernest Hemingway and Sun Valley Resort publicist Dorice Taylor would come in.

“I liked Dorice. She was always with people who were prominent and I’d watch as she worked with them on a publicity spot. Hemingway was a little haughty but he’d loosen up after he’d have a drink—he was always very focused on the group he was with. Actress Norma Shearer--if you got her table, you knew you wouldn’t get off work on time—she’d chew every bite 50 times.”

By now Flanz had made the rounds of the new exhibits.

“I love the new things they’ve brought out for the museum,” she said. “Every time I come in,  I see something I never seen before. My husband Kenneth is a docent and he just told me tonight he’s seen something he’d never seen before.”

SEE IT FOR YOURSELF

The Blaine County Historical Museum, which proudly considers itself “behind the times,” is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is free, but donations are welcome.