STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

See a historic video of Ketchum’s first Wagons Days Parade in 1958, tour the Ernest and Mary Hemingway House in Ketchum by video and listen to stories about Hemingway during the 22 years he was a part of the Sun Valley community in a tour narrated by his granddaughter Mariel Hemingway..

It’s all there on your cell phone via the Wood River Museum of History and Culture’s new digital app.

The app features an overview of the Museum’s offerings, links to its digital archives and tours  of historic locations in Ketchum and Sun Valley narrated by history buff and former Idaho State Rep. Wendy Jaquet.

It even features segments of oral histories taken from those who have lived in the area for the past hundred years.

The app gives residents and visitors to the Sun Valley area a slice of history at their fingertips. And, thanks to Bloomberg Philanthropies, it offers people from around the world to check out Hemingway sites and learn about Sun Valley history as America’s first destination ski resort.

“When I go any place, I love to go on a walking tour and find out what a town is all about, and I like going with someone who knows the area and can answer such questions as, ‘What’s that all about?’ ” said Kristine Bretall, the museum’s Community Engagement Manager. “We don’t have the staffing or the time to offer tours on a regular basis at The Museum, so this app is the perfect solution.”

The app was started by American businessman Michael Bloomberg. Offered a behind-the-curtain tour of The Met, he became fascinated by the story of a performer’s dirndl. Deciding that everyone should have access to such tours—not just billionaires like himself—his Bloomberg Philanthropies created the app.

Today, Bloomberg Connects offers exclusive app-only stories and insights about  exhibitions and collections at 935 museums, gardens and cultural organizations in 37 countries. The app is free to download and use, and Bloomberg Connects even funds the development of the apps and offers marketing tools.

Using the app, Wood River Valley residents can download stories, pictures and video from such institutions as the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the AKC Museum of the Dog, American Ballet Theatre, Anne Frank House, Edinburgh FRINGE Festival, Guggenheim Museum, the Imperial War Museum in London, the Osaka Science Museum and Surgeons’ Hall Museum.

Before the Wood River Museum’s app debuted, the closest institutions using the app were the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyo., and the Red Butte Garden and Arboretum in Salt Lake City.

“They even have the Rembrandt House Museum, which is one of my favorite museums because it’s small and intimate,” said Bretall. “It allows you to see the light that Rembrandt painted and his studio has his collection of sea shells and other objects.”

The app offers written translation for those who prefer to read rather than listen. The app can also be opened in one of 44 languages.

The Wood River Museum has already taken advantage of that in just the short week it’s had the app, offering a Thai translation for two Thai visitors and an Italian version for a group of Italians, who told Bretall they wanted to have a picnic under Sun Valley’s Dark Sky.

“I can’t do a walking tour for everyone who comes in the door, and I certainly can’t talk all these different languages so we’re letting technology help,” said Bretall.

The app offers a map of sites to visit, and it shows users where they are so they can easily follow the tour. Eventually, QR codes will be posted at historic sites to accommodate people wanting to hear or read about the history of a place.

“My dream is to create one for Sun Valley Resort and a ski tour telling the history of Baldy’s  lifts and how its runs got their names,” said Bretall, who added she hopes to add some driving tours beyond Ketchum and sun Valley.

Bretall and Mary Tyson, director of the Community Library’s Center for Regional History, gave a small group of people a walking tour showing how to the use the app Tuesday evening. They stopped across from The Elephant’s Perch.

The app showed a picture of what the home looks like now, in addition to a picture of the home that belonged to Horace and Kate Lewis back when a stagecoach was passing by on the dirt road outside.

Horace was the son of Isaac Ives Lewis who founded Ketchum with the Griffith brothers and others. A multi-entrepreneur, Horace founded the Ketchum Fast Freight line, which serviced lines from the Wood River Valley to Challis. At one time, Bretall said, Lewis had 700 horses—or 35 teams, which he kept in various corrals around Ketchum.  

He designed his tall narrow wagons to withstand the road he graded over Galena Summit and the road up Trail Creek. The Brass family would go on to buy his ranch from Katherine after Horace’s death in 1911, and that eventually became Sun Valley Resort.

Stopping at the Christiania, Bretall reflected on how Sun Valley Road was 3rd Street when the Christiania opened one block to the north as Sun Valley Resort had not yet been founded. American mobster Bugsy Siegel was rumored to have frequented it. And Peter Gray, a longtime Sun Valley Realtor, has told how he had his first drink at 15 there with Ernest Hemingway following a hunt, added Tyson.

The Atkinsons had an apartment on the second story which Mary Hemingway used as a hideway after her husband’s death by suicide, Tyson added.

The Gold Mine next door was originally the Community Library, noted Tyson. Union Pacific Railroad donated the land and Clara Spiegel, who had married into the Spiegel Catalog family, convinced the architect to create what was then a modern design.

It has a similar look to her home up the street, allowing a lot of natural light in, noted Bretall: “She said, ‘We’re not going to do a log cabin.’ ”

The Bonning Cabin, one of the first wooden structures built in Ketchum, was moved from its original site where the Kentwood Lodge now sits next to the Ore Wagon Museum. One of the earliest Ketchum weddings happened there when the daughter of a prominent Ketchum family married one of the Bonning boys.

The home had to be moved back from the road from its original site because wagons kicked up stones, breaking the windows, added Tyson.

Tyson inspected the square nails on the cabin. Early builders were frugal with nails because they were expensive said Bretall.

Bretall said she was thrilled to offer an app where users can hear Clara Spiegel tell how she and two other women conceived of the library while walking on the Sun Valley golf links one fall, where they can see photos of Hemingway’s library cards and where they can hill Hemingway’s friend Tillie Arnold share stories about the man.

“This app allow us to leverage our knowledge and to literally offer people around the world free access to the rich cultural history and sites of Ketchum and Sun Valley from the ease of their phone,” she added.

HOW TO GET STARTED:

Go to https://comlib.org/museum/history-in-your-hands/. Or, download the free Bloomberg Connections app from Google Play or the App Store. Visit https://www.bloombergconnects.org/guides/ to see which institutions offer apps.

The Wood River Museum is at 580 4th Street Eat in Ketchum cattycorner from The Community Library. It is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Admission is free.