BY JOHN W. LUNDIN

Sun Valley Resort opened in December 1936, causing Ketchum to flourish, and Carl Brandt decided to relocate the Guyer Hot Springs Hotel to downtown Ketchum.

On April 1, 1937, the Hailey Times announced that the Guyer Hot Springs Hotel, which was located near the mouth of Warm Springs canyon, would be resurrected in Ketchum. The famous old hostelry was being dismantled and would be reconstructed almost board by board on Ketchum’s Main Street on a lot owned by Carl Brandt.

A small building that occupied the town lot south of the Griffith Store, recently used as a barbershop, was relocated to the back of the lot. There would be 15 rooms in the hotel, hardwood dance floors and rustic fireplaces, the newspaper reported.

Brandt hired the Bonin brother, the same firm that did the original masonry and chimney work when the Guyer Hot Springs Hotel was built 26 years before, to do the work. It would take two months.

Brandt named the new building the St. Georg Hotel. It took its place alongside the Baxter Hotel, the Ketchum Kamp Hotel and Brandt’s Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge.

The new St. Georg Hotel had 28 rooms, each with a shower bath or tub, and many of the rooms had sun porches. It boasted native stone fireplaces, a fine bar room and a commodious lobby.

“The fine, new St. Georg Hotel” would open on June 19, 1937, and the public was invited to a gala opening party. Bright green and brown and exotic in design, the building is shrouded in an atmosphere of old world-ese. It is understood to be a replica of many Swiss chalets. “No effort and no expense has been spared in making the St. Georg a place of beauty of comfort and of pleasure,” newspapers reported.

“The downstairs is finished almost completely in hardwoods, stained attractively and rustic in general appearance. On the ground floor, there are two immense rooms in the front in the lobby or lounge room, furnished with a profusion of easy chairs and davenports, and made cheery by a great stone fireplace.

“At the rear is another equally large room in the center of which a huge circular bar rises almost to the ceiling....About half of this large room will be devoted to dancing. An ingenious and artistic pattern has been employed in the construction of the dance floor. Maple and oak used alternatively in a quadrangular design have produced striking results.”

Even though gambling was tolerated in Ketchum, and there were a number of clubs offering a variety of games of chance, the St. Georg management banned gambling devices and games in the hotel.

The formal opening of the St. Georg Hotel was a gala event on June 19, 1937. Guests from all sections of the country “swarmed into the lobby, bar and dance room of the new hostelry in curious, jostling droves.”

The 19 completed guest rooms held travelers from various towns in Idaho (Jerome, Shoshone, Boise and Obsidian), along with Ritzville, Wash., Saginaw, Mich., and New York City. The opening took place on a Saturday night, and “record crowds” visited Ketchum. Some persons contend that there were more visitors gathered in the lively little town than at any one time before.

Every place of business was filled, every available dancing space was utilized and, to move from one place to another, it was necessary to forcibly elbow one’s way through others.

The St. Georg Hotel was a prominent landmark in downtown Ketchum, until it burned down in January 1939. A $50,000 fire destroyed the St. Georg Hotel in January 1939, and insurance adjusters were investigating “the twisted steel of a once beautiful hotel to determine its cause.”

The fire began at 5:15 on the third floor and, within two hours, the building was “reduced to a heap of burning embers.” The cause of the fire was not known. Inadequate fire-fighting equipment was the reason the hotel burned down completely.

Hand fire extinguishers were the only means available to fight the fire. The Ketchum hose cart and the Sun Valley hose were brought to the fire, but they arrived too late to save the hotel, although they saved the rest of the town from burning.

Two fire plugs near the hotel did not work, so firemen were forced to use a plug far from the fire. Hailey’s fire department took a secondary truck to the fire, and helped to save downtown Ketchum. Ironically, Sun Valley’s new fire engine was sitting on a freight car on a railroad siding and could not be deployed. It had arrived the day of the fire.

Some of the hotel’s furniture and equipment on the first floor was saved, and some on the second floor. But nothing on the third floor could be saved, and the guests staying there lost their personal possessions. Insurance only covered half of the value of the hotel.

The fire was so hot that it broke the windows of the post office located in Lewis’s old First National Bank on the other side of Main Street, and blistered paint on Griffith’s grocery store across Second Street.

The fire was even reported in Seattle newspapers since so many from that city regularly went to Sun Valley to ski and enjoy its many attractions: “Fire destroyed the $40,000 St. Georg Hotel last night. The flames, tossed by a high wind, threatened adjacent buildings for a short time. Pete Bonin, proprietor, said the fire started on the third floor in a defective flue, and spread rapidly. Ketchum, village of 200, two miles north of Sun Valley, is a noted winter resort.”

    + John W. Lundin, a local historian, has written a number of books, including “Skiing Sun Valley: A History from Union Pacific to the Holdings.”