BY JOHN W. LUNDIN

We celebrated the 78th year of the Hailey Rodeo this year. That event has been a mainstay of Wood River Valley summers ever since the Sawtooth Rangers’ Riding Club held its first rodeo in 1948 at the old Hailey Ball Park, dubbing it the Wood River Roundup.

Given this rich tradition, it is worth going further back in history to see how important rodeos have been to summers in the Wood River Valley. The Sun Valley Resort hosted its first rodeo in August 1937, the first year the resort was open.

When Averell Harriman was planning Union Pacific Railroad’s new ski resort in 1936, Sun Valley was initially intended to be a winter ski resort. However, in winter 1936, John E.P. Morgan-- one of Harriman’s advisors--said summer operations were being considered.

Native Americans from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation near Pocatello took part in the Sun Valley rodeo in 1947.

He also said that a local man was doing a report on hunting and fishing, that Roberta Brass (whose father sold his ranch to Union Pacific for the resort) wanted to organize sleigh rides for guests and that hot springs, fishing, shooting and beautiful country would be attractions for visitors.

Sun Valley closed for its first winter season on April 1, 1937. On April 4, Railway Age, a trade publication, announced, “Sun Valley Lodge to Reopen for Summer Season” for vacationists desiring mountain trails, fishing, swimming, tennis and horseback riding.

On April 6, 1937, Union Pacific Board approved a million dollars for the next phase of the “Development of Sun Valley, Idaho,” to expand its appeal to the large class of moderate income guests and provide accommodations for winter and summer seasons.

The plan called for building the Sun Valley Inn, Sun Valley Village, Sun Valley Opera House, Sun Valley Lake, Trail Creek Lodge and other amenities.

A bull rider thrilled crowds in the early days—and they still do today.

On May 25, the Board approved an additional $65,000 to construct barns and corrals and grandstands and other rodeo facilities at Sun Valley to provide entertainment for summer guests. Harriman said the idea for the rodeo grounds came William Jeffers, who became the new president of Union Pacific in October 1937.

Jeffers didn’t know about skiing but thought a rodeo would attract tourists. By summer 1937 guests could enjoy the artificial lake, golf course, polo field, baseball diamond, rodeo and horseback riding. An 11,000-seat rodeo stadium and stands, together with a barn and horse track, became the centerpiece of Sun Valley’s summer entertainment.

The New York Times said Sun Valley had “the West’s most modern sports stadium.” The rodeo grounds were on Sun Valley Road where the resort’s horses are presently kept. They had a covered grandstand on the northwest side, an open grandstand on the south, a quarter-mile oval track around the facility, and pens and chutes for livestock. The facilities were finished in time for the first Sun Valley Rodeo to be held on Aug. 14 and 15, 1937.

The rodeo featured a parade with the historic Lewis ore wagons that were used to haul ore from nearby mines to the Philadelphia Smelter in Ketchum located at the head of Warm Springs Canyon.

Owen Simpson included a rodeo ground on his 78-acre Warm Springs Ranch in the early 1950s.

Dog kennels were built near the rodeo grounds. Sun Valley’s skeet shooting arena was ready for use in August, with a skeet and trap field and four electronically operated traps. It was located in the Elkhorn Gulch--“convenient to the lodge but far enough away that the blasts of the guns do not disturb the guests.”

“It promises soon to become one of the most popular sports here. In fact, it’s rapidly becoming one of the nation’s top amusements, wrote the Idaho Statesman.

In fact, the Sun Valley Rodeo was one of the resort’s most popular summer attractions, with thousands watching the action of the cowboys and horses and other activities.

Among those chronicling the new activities was Dick Durrance. Durrance was one of Averell Harriman’s favorites. He was on the 1936 U.S. Olympic Ski Team, led the Dartmouth Ski Team and won the first Harriman Cup Tournament at Sun Valley in Spring 1937, beating the best racers in the world.

The historic Lewis ore wagons led the parade when Sun Valley Resort hosted summer rodeos.

In the summer of 1937, Durrance worked at Sun Valley during his summer vacation from Dartmouth. When he told Harriman he was interested in photography, Harriman got him a 4 x 5 Speed Graphic, “the press camera of choice” and Durrance worked as one of the resort’s publicity photographers.

At the end of the summer, he took the camera back to Dartmouth, where he took pictures and became the editor of the Dartmouth Pictorial.

“I’ll never forget the first time I saw Sun Valley in the summertime...coming up by bus from Shoshone,” he said. “It had just rained, and that was the first time I smelled sage after a rainfall. It was exhilarating--the nicest, freshest smell I could imagine. Just the atmosphere itself was fabulous.

“I loved Sun Valley,” he continued. “The summers were totally unlike anything I’d ever experienced...I guess I was totally hooked... I was only doing photography...working with Gene Van Gilder, who was head of publicity...Our job was to shoot pictures of anyone who came to Sun Valley and send them to their hometown papers...I’d shoot rodeos, tennis, fishing, horseback riding, rock climbing—anything that was going on.”

Averell Harriman was a big supporter of Sun Valley rodeos, and dressed in western gear for the events. In January 1939, Fortune magazine described Sun Valley’s winter and summer attractions in an article: “Sun Valley: If You Ski...it is a $3,000,000 monument to your pleasure, if you don’t, W. Averell Harriman thinks you probably will.”

Sun Valley has absorbed some $3 million of Union Pacific’s money, the article said.

“It has stables, tennis courts, two ice rinks, and two glass-enclosed outdoor swimming pools full of heated water. It has cutters and dog sledges and snow tractors. It has three ski lifts with a total length of 7,750 feet...There are toboggan runs and ski jumps and slalom courses... There is a lake and a rodeo stadium and a nine-hole golf course for the summer season... There is a beauty shop, a barbershop, a movie theater, and a branch of Saks Fifth Avenue. ...After dinner you may go down to Ketchum where there are now more gambling houses than private homes.”

What’s more, the chairlift to the Roundhouse restaurant operated once a week in summer so guests could also see the greatest mountain in the country on which to ski.

The Valley Sun’s special summer edition described Sun Valley’s summer of 1939. A new 60 x 120-foot outdoor ice-skating rink had opened, it said, overlooked by the Lodge’s dining terrace, with a “generous dance floor” that could be used in winter or summer.

New tennis courts were built. Summer rodeos started in August in “the most modern western sports stadium ever created” or what was said to be the finest stadium in the West.”

A children’s playground opened in June. The resort offered swimming, badminton, paddle tennis, croquet, bicycling, canoeing, horseshoes, archery, golf on a “tricky” new nine-hole course with 18 tees, trail riding, fishing in local streams and at Silver Creek and pack expeditions into the nearby wilderness area.

The New York Times of Aug. 11, 1940, described Sun Valley’s rodeo that honored Idaho’s fiftieth year of statehood in “the West’s most modern sports stadium:”

“Here will be enacted the drama of cowpunchers atop whirling broncos and bulldoggers wrestling squirming steers against a background of the Sawtooth Mountains raising almost from the arena’s stage. Fourteen competitive events will be staged each day. Among them will be bronc riding, calf roping, bulldogging, Brahma bull and steer riding, men’s and women’s trick riding and relay racing, Pony Express racing, trick roping, cowboys’ Roman racing, wild-horse racing and bell-calf roping.”

But time was running out for the rodeo, even though it was one of Sun Valley Resort’s most popular attractions. Learn why next week when Eye on Sun Valley runs another installment of John W. Lundin’s look at rodeoing in Sun Valley.

EDITOR’S NOTE: More information about the history of Sun Valley and the Wood River Valley can be found in John W. Lundin’s books, Skiing Sun Valley: A History From Union Pacific to The Holdings and Sun Valley, Ketchum and the Wood River Valley.