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Sho-Ban Tribe to Join in Wagon Days Fun
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Thursday, August 30, 2018
 

STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

For 61 years Wagon Days has celebrated the early pioneers who founded Ketchum as a mining town.

This year for the first time it will acknowledge the Native Americans who used to migrate through the Wood River Valley each summer, catching fish in the Big Wood River enroute to high mountain meadows.

Members of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe, who hail from Fort Hall, will put on a dance and drumming exhibition at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 31, before the Big Hitch Parade, which starts at 1 p.m. They will also put up teepees in Festival Meadow on Sun Valley Road.

“A couple of our local men—Dr. Tom Crais and Ralph Harris--thought it would be a great way to honor all the different parts of our history, and we made it happen,” said Wagon Days organizer Heather LaMonica Deckard. “We couldn’t be more excited.”

The Big Hitch Parade, billed as the largest non-motorized parade in the West, is centered around the behemoth ore wagons with their six-foot wheels that Horace C. Lewis ran as part of his Ketchum Fast Freight Line established in 1884. The ore wagons carried up to 18,000 pounds of ore and covered 12 to 14 miles a day.

While famed for taking the wagons up and down the steep narrow Trail Creek Road with its many hairpin turns,  Lewis actually took his first load of ore from the nearby Elkhorn mine to the railroad at Kelton, Utah.

He made the round trip with The Big Hitch, as his wagons were called, in about two weeks, returning to Ketchum with merchandise for local businesses.

At one point he had 30 teams and 200 mules making their way between Ketchum and the mining towns of Clayton, Bayhorse, Challis, Custer and Bonanza via the Trail Creek Road, then known as the Ketchum-Challis Toll Road.

It must have been a sight in the days when Trail Creek Road  had a 12 percent grade. The road since has been lowered and straightened twice and is now only 7 percent grade.

The parade boasts plenty of other historic wagons, as well, including an antique oil carrier, Wells Fargo hitch, Mike and Jeannie Beavers’ 100-plus year-old hearse and a back-to-back trap Studebaker carriage in which the driver faces forward while passengers sit facing backwards.

The ever-expanding menagerie of camels and white bison will be back, joined by two new friends. And some of the animals will be taken to the Kids Activity area following the parade for kids to pet.

The Sons and Daughters of Liberty from Twin Falls will take their place in the parade for the first time this year, alongside Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

This year’s Grand Marshal will be Jack Williams, who has long filled in for Santa whenever the jolly old guy from the North Pole was too busy to make it to Sun Valley. He will be honored with free pizza and drink at the Grand Marshal reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 31, at the Ketchum Town Square before heading a couple blocks away to a free Barn Dance featuring the local Americana band Old Death Whisper.

When this year’s Big Hitch spectacle is over, parade-watchers can make their way over to the Ketchum Town Square area for a free street dance featuring The Last Bandoleros. The Texas-based band has been described by Rolling Stone magazine as “the most thrilling new country act currently on a major Nashville label.”

The band serves up a fusion of Tex-Mex and the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, with harmonies, rhythms and sounds that evoke early classics by The Beatles as much as the country, honky tonk and Latin vibes of South Texas. The band spent much of last year on tour with Sting.

Souvenirs are available from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at Wagon Days Headquarters at the Ore Wagon Museum, East Avenue at Fifth Street in Ketchum.

“You can reserve bleacher seats there for the best seats in the house—the corner of Sun Valley Road and Main Street--where you can watch the mules jump the chain as they make the turn,” added Deckard. “Or, you can purchase them online at www.wagondays.net.

WAGON DAYS HIGHLIGHTS:

FRIDAY, Aug. 1:

All Day—Meandering Musicians will croon their best “Red River Valley” and other country western tunes at various spots around town, including Perry’s Restaurant.

All Day—Ketchum Antique & Art Show across from the Ketchum Post Office, 151 4th St. W.

11 a.m.-2  p.m.—Cowboy Poets will serve up witty repertoire about their homes on the range amidst a little bit of cowboy crooning at the Ore Wagon Museum.

5-7 p.m.—Grand Marshal Reception honoring Jack “Santa” Williams at the Ketchum Town Square. Pizza  and drink will be served.

5-8 p.m.—Sun Valley Gallery Association will host its Wagon Days Gallery Walk featuring work at such galleries as Gail Severn Gallery.

7-10 p.m. Barn Dance will feature Old Death Whisper at the Ore Wagon Museum.

SATURDAY, Sept. 1:

All Day—Ketchum Antique & Art Show continues.

8 a.m.-noon—Papoose Club Pancake Breakfast in Ketchum Town Square.

10 a.m.-5 p.m.—Face painting, train rides, stencil painting and a petting zoo featuring camels and other animals will be available for cowgirls and cowboys free of charge at the corner of 4th and East Avenue. There’ll even be a chance to learn about branding and take part in other hands-on activities of the Old West via Wagons Ho covered wagon exhibition!

10 a.m.—The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, who live near Pocatello, will stage a performance at Festival Meadow on Sun Valley Road.

10:30 a.m.—The EhCapa Bareback Riders of Boise will demonstrate their ability to perform maneuvers without saddle or bridle at Festival Meadow.

10:30 a.m.-7 p.m.—Silver Auction on the lawn near Sun Valley Lodge.

1 p.m.—The Big Hitch Parade will begin near Festival Meadow and roll down Sun Valley to Main Street where it will hang a right and circle back to its starting place via Highway 75 and Saddle Road.

2:30 or 3ish—The Last Bandoleros will perform at East Avenue and 4th Street.

Dusk—The final Sun Valley Ice Show of the season features Adam Rippon, the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist. Tickets available at www.sunvalley.com or at 208-622-2135.

SUNDAY, Sept. 2:

All Day—Ketchum Antique & Art Show continues.

8 a.m.-noon—Papoose Club Pancake Breakfast in Ketchum Town Square continues to raises money for children’s organizations in the Wood River Valley.

10:30 a.m.-7 p.m.—Silver Auction on the lawn near the Sun Valley Lodge.

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