Like the Phoenix Bird, Ketchum/Sun Valley has risen from the ashes and had many reincarnations.
Ketchum was first settled around 1880 when miners came to town to mine gold and silver after the end of the Bannock Indian Wars in 1877. The population was about 2,000 in the mid 1880's.
After the mining boom came to an end in the late 1890's, Ketchum once again prospered as a center for the sheep industry and was the largest sheep shipping center in the country.
It wasn't until after 1936 that Sun Valley gained world recognition when Averell Harriman, then chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad, brought Count Felix Schaffgosch over from Austria to find a place that would be equal to or better to ski than Switzerland's St. Moritz. After searching for weeks in the mountains of Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and California and finding nothing to compare, he took a remote spur of the Union Pacific Railroad to Ketchum, Idaho and the rest, as they say, is history. Sun Valley was created and considered at the time to be the most glamorous ski resort in the country or anywhere. With over 3,000 feet of continuous constant pitch vertical, many consider Baldy to be the most perfect ski mountain in the world.
Though Sun Valley started out one of its earlier reincarnations as a ski resort for the rich and famous, today it has become a destination resort for golfing, ice skating, mountain and road biking, Nordic skiing, white water rafting, hiking, hunting, fishing, virtually all kinds of summer and winter sports as well as a center for the arts, symphony, health and wellness.
There is something for everyone in Sun Valley. It is a wonderful place to live, work and raise a family, retire or just recreate. Please contact me to find out more about living in Sun Valley.
