STORY BY KATE DALY

PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Spring cleaning and wondering what to do with those boxes collecting dust in the attic? The Center for Regional History Librarian at the Community Library could become your new best friend IF the contents relate to the Wood River Valley, Central Idaho and/or the American West.

Liam Guthrie moved to the Sun Valley area from Chicago a little more than a year ago to take his first job out of college.  He majored in History at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and lately has been putting his skills to work by offering patrons drop-in hours at the Betty Olsen Carr Reading Room on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The rest of the time he’s hunkered down in the Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History office cataloguing collections of books, maps, newspapers, photographs, microfiche, documents, and oral histories, or responding to specific requests such as information about the first chairlift.

“We’ve had a few people drop in, but more often people schedule a time… they’re trying to find something interesting in newspapers about old buildings or obituaries,” Guthrie said.

He admits when people ask about seeing the archives, “it can be a little confusing because we have archives in our office and archives underneath the museum, too.”

Guthrie is referring to the nearby Wood River Museum of History and Culture where that part of the library’s collection leans more towards physical objects and artifacts.

The library welcomes donations of related material.

For example, a patron recently brought in some photographs of his grandfather Hap Miller, a musician and bandleader who regularly played music in Sun Valley for decades.

Another time Guthrie was going through what he describes as “old Sun Valley stuff, a few brochures that looked kind of weird, showing a rebuilt Sun Valley village in New York for the World’s Fair.”

Further digging revealed “Sun Valley A Winter Wonderland” was a wildly popular exhibit in 1939, where for 25 cents visitors could wander around an Alpine village and enjoy shops, restaurants, a church, toboggan rides and a snowstorm while watching ski jumping and ice skating.

Regional history search requests can be made in person at the library, or online at: https://comlib.org/center-for-regional-history. That link also leads to the library’s various collections’ databases.