STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

The new Wood River Museum of History and Culture boasts a buffalo hide coat worn by Albert Griffith, who arrived in Ketchum in 1879 and went on to build a grocery store in the building that now houses the Sun Valley Culinary Institute.

It also displays a colorful poncho worn by Juan Salamanca, who came to the Wood River Valley from Zacatecas, Mexico, in 1994 and went on to become a schoolteacher and church leader in Hailey.

The exhibits reflecting a page from the past and a page from the present are part of an exhibit called “How Did You Get to Sun Valley?”

They sit next to additional exhibits supplying a look at Wah Kee Lea, a Chinese immigrant who came in the 1880s; Helen Murdoch Fassett, who found refugee from the bright lights of Hollywood and Broadway on her Big Wood River ranch in the 1930s, and Rosmery Serva, who brought a pair of leopard print pajamas with her from Huancayo, Peru, in 2016, when she came to  work at her father’s KB’s Burritos before opening Saffron, her own restaurant.

“I love that we addressed the question ‘How did you get to Sun Valley?’ because everyone always asks that,” said Jenny Emery Davidson, executive director of The Community Library. “And I love that this exhibition features not just the famous but more recent arrivals like Juan and even Wah Kee Lea, whose story never was written down.”

Wood River Valley residents and visitors are invited to experience the museum for themselves when the museum holds its Grand Opening Wednesday, July 26, at 580 Fourth Street East in the new building cattycorner from The Community Library.

The celebration from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. will include refreshments and music by Grammy Award-winning flautist Hovia S. Edwards, a member of the Shoshone, Navajo and Okanogan tribes.

• Those walking into the Wood River Museum of History and Culture museum will begreeted by a LIDAR map of the Big Wood watershed splashed across the hallway entrance.

  At first glance, it might look like abstract art mural. But it is the geographic representation of the Wood River watershed created by Olympia, Wash.-cartographer Dan Coe, who will speak at The Community Library in August. Coe uses lidar laser light pulses to create three-dimensional models of the earth’s surface. The depictions often reveal previously unseen channels where rivers have flowed in the past.

  “There’s more under the surface that we might realize,” said Davidson.

• The Tribal Room at the entrance to the museum acknowledging that visitors are standing on the ancestral homelands of the Shoshone and Bannock peoples. It features traditional Shoshone fishing baskets made by local artist Sam Galloway and moccasins made of muskrat fur.

  Bobette Haskett used one and a half muskrats to make each shoe, said regional historian librarian  Kelley Moulton.  

• The Cabinet of Wonders invites guests to work pulleys and push buttons to raise doors like that on a puppet theater and open cabinets to reveal two dozen objects of curiosity, including a telegraph key and a wax cylinder phonograph on which they can play old time music. The cabinet, designed by local craftsman Paul Bates, is made of redwood salvaged from Sun Valley’s original water tank.

  “It’s the water tank that never stopped giving,” said Davidson.

  Behind one cabinet is a Morse code machine where adults and children will be encouraged to decipher a code. Still another reveals sparkling bejeweled platform shoes worn by Cherie Kessler in the Vuarnettes, a singing group that changed the lyrics of popular hit songs to satirize Sprinter vans and other things befuddling Sun Valley residents.

  The objects will be changed regularly so visitors can come back repeatedly and find new objects of curiosity.

• The Portrait of a Mountain exhibit describes how Sun Valley became the nation’s first destination ski resort and how the nation’s first ski patrol began at Sun Valley the same year the resort opened in 1936.

  And it details the impact Bald Mountain has had more recently—say, how Sun Valley Music Festival Artistic Director Alasdair Neale and Time for Three violinist Nick Kendall got the idea for what would become a Grammy Award-winning composition while hiking Baldy.

• A Writer in New Country: Hemingway in 1939 notes the famous author’s quote “A hell of a lot of state, this Idaho, that I didn’t know about.” And it features a typewriter with typewriter paper on which people are invited to “Share Your One True Sentence.”

  “We found a little girl pecking away on the typewriter this afternoon, and she said, ‘I’m typing a novel,’ ” said Davidson.

  There are isolated treasures sprinkled throughout the museum, including Jeanne and Pete Lane’s book recording the Paul Revere Bowl and pewter dishes wedding gifts they received in 1942.

  A letter by Isabella Pound details her journey across the Camas Prairie when she was pregnant with Ezra, who went on to become a renowned poet who always described himself as “the Idaho poet.” The letter reflects what would otherwise be an invisible moment in history, noted Davidson.

• A wall of suitcases asks people to write “How Did you End up Here?” on luggage tags.

“Our youngest daughter just got engaged on the Wood River. I’ll never forget it,” wrote Carol from San Diego.

“I am the daughter of immigrants who migrated to Sun Valley from Mexico and Guatemala,” wrote Diana. “Proudly born and raised here in the great mountains!”

“I am originally from Taiwan and this is my first visit to Sun Valley,” wrote Tai-Wei Yu. “We live in Meridian, ID, and will definitely come back.”

“I moved here in November 2022 to be a ski instructor and it was the best winter I have ever experienced,” said Grace. “Most people say they moved here for the winter and they stayed for the summer…I moved here for the winter and I am staying for the winter! The summer is just the time in between.”

The library became the steward of the Sun Valley Ski Museum in Ketchum’s Forest Service Park 10 years ago, but its collection has grown too big for those buildings, and the buildings were not designed as museums, said Davidson. The City of Ketchum owns them and is committed to preserving them as historic buildings.

The new museum features 900 square feet of collection storage in the basement.

Davidson said she hoped that the Museum will become a part of the heartbeat of the community and a place where everyone can feel a sense of belonging in and wonderment about central Idaho history.

“We feel like our collection is in a better place now. And we hope people will visit it continually. We hope those who come will see that they are part of the history of this place. And I hope they will leave saying things like, ‘I didn’t know about a smelter at the base of Baldy.’ So, I hope, a moment of surprise!”

Davidson said she hoped that the Museum will become a part of the heartbeat of the community and a place where everyone can feel a sense of belonging in and wonderment bout central Idaho history.

The library became the steward of the Sun Valley Ski Museum 10 years ago. museu at Ketchum’s Forest Service Park. But it had operational challenges and the buildings were not designed to be museum. City of Ketchum owns them and is committed to preserving them as historic buildings.

To learn more visit Click Here.

IF YOU GO…

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturday. Entry is free.