BY JOHN W. LUNDIN

PHOTOS OBTAINED BY JOHN W. LUNDIN FROM THE COMMUNITY LIBRARY

The Sun Valley Rodeo, so popular in the resort’s early years, was left sitting on the fencepost after the end of World War II as Union Pacific leaders declined to continue it.

But others picked up the slack.

Warm Springs Ranch, now the site of a 65-acre preserve fondly called “The dog park,” began hosting rodeos in 1952.

The ranch had been developed and operated by Owen Simpson and his family. Simpson owned the Sawtooth Club in Ketchum, one of the many clubs that offered gambling before the war for locals and Sun Valley guests.

The Idaho Constitution said there could be no lottery or gift enterprise, but there was no law saying gambling was legal, and it was tolerated. Ketchum had gambling clubs and Hailey had prostitution along River Street before the war.

Casino-type gambling was popular in the 1930s and1940s, and the clubs offered 21, craps and wheel gambling games. Clubs did not have regular poker games but poker was played. But Owen Simpson was concerned that gambling would no longer be tolerated in Ketchum after the war.

As a result, he and several partners bought several hundred acres of land in Warm Springs Canyon, where they planned to develop a large gambling facility. They built the Devil’s Bedstead building to be the center of gambling, and planned to open an airstrip in Warm Springs Canyon so high rollers could fly into the facility.

One of Simpson’s New York partners died before the idea could be brought to fruition, and the partnership’s land was divided between the partners, with Simpson getting the land south of Warm Springs Road that became the Warm Springs Ranch.

In his oral history at The Community Library, Owen’s son Jack Simpson said Ketchum was wide open when he returned to Ketchum in 1946, and there were five or six bars offering gambling that were open all night. In fact, things didn’t really pick in Ketchum until about 11:30 p.m. or midnight, when things shut down in Sun Valley.

All the guests and employees at Sun Valley would come to town at Ketchum and stay there until nearly daylight. It was a tough sort of group but it also involved movie stars. Ketchum was full of movie stars, movie producers and other various assorted important people.

At that time, nobody paid attention to the movie crowd and they were treated just like everyone else. A local, Pappy Haines, was known for riding his horse into the Alpine Club, circling around before he left. Nobody thought much about that kind of behavior in those days.

Jack Simpson said every nightclub on Ketchum’s Main Street had to take care of its own problems, especially when the Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA) rodeo came to town. After rodeoing during the day, the cowboys partied at night.

When they weren’t riding bucking horses or bulldogging, they fought. One night, Jack Simpson witnessed a big fight involving RCA cowboys at the Casino, which to him, “looked like a real movie fight scene but better.”

Simpson described his work after returning from World War II, which included teaching skiing for Sun Valley, dealing cards at the Sawtooth Club and later working at the Warm Springs Ranch.

There is a rumor that Owen won the property that became Warm Springs Ranch in a poker game. However, Simpson actually won $12,000 from a New York gambler, which he used as his investment in the company that bought the land.

In 1947, Idaho law changed to permit the sale of liquor by the drink, but on-site gambling was outlawed. In August 1947, the Blaine County Sheriff raided the Sawtooth Club and arrested Owen Simpson for allowing illegal gambling and selling liquor without state stamps.

Simpson continued gambling at the Sawtooth Club and sponsored poker games at the old Guyer Hot Springs site, and Jack said they “were in court and jail a lot” between 1948 and 1950.

In the early 1950s, Owen Simpson developed the 78-acre Warm Springs Ranch, building a restaurant, rodeo grounds, a golf course and tennis courts. The restaurant was built in 1951, and the Warm Springs Ranch Inn opened in August 1953, with fish ponds surrounding its deck.

It was run by Owen and his wife Josephine until 1960, and by Jack and Mary Lou Simpson until 1975. The restaurant, a favorite place to eat for decades, operated until 2004.

Owen built rodeo grounds using the equipment, such as chutes and gates, that Sun Valley Resort no longer needed after the resort decided to shut down its rodeo. Beginning in 1952, Simpson held rodeos at the Warm Springs Ranch every weekend for several years.

They were big events, bringing crowds from all over. Jack Simpson participated in the rodeos as the “Sun Valley Cowboy.” He raised horse available for rent on the ranch and had a landing strip in Warm Springs canyon north of the road which he used for his outfitting and guiding business.

The Warm Springs Restaurant initially did not have a liquor license. However, Idaho’s law changed to authorize issuance of liquor licenses outside city limits if the facility was associated with a golf course or on a lake.

The fish ponds around Warm Springs Ranch did not qualify as a lake so Owen took a bulldozer, graded the surrounding land to create the Warm Springs golf course and got his liquor license.

The golf course opened in 1960 and the ranch later became a game reserve and an elk feeding station. It is not clear how long rodeos were held at Warm Springs Ranch.

The Warm Springs Tennis Club opened in 1973 on the rodeo grounds, replacing an historical activity with a more modern one. Owen Simpson developed several subdivisions in the 1950s and 1960s and today, of course, new homes are going in where the tennis courts—and rodeo grounds—used to sit.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Ketchum historian has written a myriad of history books including “Skiing Sun Valley: A History from Union Pacific to the Holdings.”