Sun Valley
Life in Ketchum, Idaho, in the early 1900s was slow and simple. Following the mining boom of the 1800s, residents of this quiet, rural area turned to ranching to make ends meet. Despite the advent of automobiles and highways, Ketchum and the surrounding Sawtooth Mountains, remained secluded, just an old mining town barely on the map. However, things changed after the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, in 1932. As alpine skiing gained great popularity in the United States following the global event, and the growing Union Pacific Railroad company sought new ways to bring people west on its railroads, the Rocky Mountain West emerged as an ideal location for these ideas to converge.
Union Pacific Chairman W.A. Harriman hired Austrian-born skier and sportsman, Count Felix Schaffgotsch, to survey the land around the Rocky Mountain West in Utah, Colorado, Washington, Wyoming and Idaho. Schaffgotsch’s task was simple: Find a spot that would be worthy of the United States’ first ski resort. Exploring acreage around Mount Rainier, WA, Mount Hood, OR, Yosemite National Park, CA, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, and other notable mountain destinations, Schaffgotsch eventually backtracked to a place called Ketchum, in Idaho, where one Union Pacific employee had mentioned both abundant snowfall and sunshine in a passing conversation. Upon reaching the sleepy, mining-turned-farming town of Ketchum, Schaffgotsch knew that he’d found the place.
In Ketchum, the town’s moderate elevation, snowy but mild climate, and stunning mountain landscapes proved the ideal spot to break ground for the project that aimed to bring skiing to America’s greater population. In a telegraph to Chairman Harriman, Schaffgotsch described it as one of the most stunning locales he’d ever come across, that “this [location] combines more delightful features than any place I have seen in the United States, Switzerland or Austria, for a winter sports resort.”
