Sun Valley is a resort town and alpine ski resort in the western United States, in Blaine County, Idaho, adjacent to the city of Ketchum in the Wood River valley. The population was 1,783 at the 2020 census. The elevation of Sun Valley (at the Lodge) is above sea level.
Among skiers, the term "Sun Valley" refers to the alpine ski area, which consists of Bald Mountain, the main ski mountain adjacent to Ketchum. Dollar Mountain, which is adjacent to Sun Valley, is suited for novice and lower intermediate skiers. Bald Mountain, or "Baldy", best suited for intermediate to advanced and expert skiers, has a summit of and a vertical drop of . The treeless "Dollar" at has a moderate vertical drop of .
The term "Sun Valley" is used more generally to speak of the region surrounding the city, including the neighboring city of Ketchum and the Wood River Valley area winding south to Hailey and Bellevue. The region has been a seasonal home to the rich and famous since first being brought to public attention by Ernest Hemingway in the late 1930s.
Scheduled passenger airline service is available at Friedman Memorial Airport (SUN) in Hailey, approximately south. Visitors are relatively close to the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, accessed over Galena Summit on State Highway 75, the Sawtooth Scenic Byway.
History
Union Pacific Railroad (1936–1964) The first destination winter resort in the U.S. was developed by W. Averell Harriman, the chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad, primarily to increase ridership on U.P. passenger trains in the Western United States.Engen, Alan K. (1998) For the Love of Skiing: A Visual History Gibbs Smith ISBN 0-87905-867-6 p. 90 The UP's City of Portland (from Chicago and Omaha) and Portland Rose (from Kansas City) went to Shoshone in southern Idaho, where buses (then called "motor coaches") took travelers to Sun Valley. Sleeping car passengers from Los Angeles were able to take direct carriages on the UP's Pony Express from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, and the Sun Valley Special from Salt Lake City to Sun Valley.
The success of the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, spurred an increase in participation in winter sports (and alpine skiing in particular). A lifelong skier, Harriman determined that America would embrace a destination mountain resort, similar to those enjoyed in the Swiss Alps, such as St. Moritz and Davos.
During the winter of 1935–36, Harriman enlisted the services of an Austrian Sportsman, Count Felix Schaffgotsche, to travel across the Western U.S. to locate an ideal site for a winter resort. The Count toured Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Yosemite, the San Bernardino Mountains, Zion, Rocky Mountain National Park, the Wasatch Range, Pocatello, Jackson Hole, and Grand Targhee areas.
Late in his trip and on the verge of abandoning his search for an ideal location for a mountain resort development, he backtracked toward the Ketchum area in central Idaho. A U.P. employee in Boise had casually mentioned that the rail spur to Ketchum cost the company more money for snow removal than any other branch line and the Count went to explore.
Schaffgotsch was impressed by the combination of Bald Mountain and its surrounding mountains, adequate snowfall, abundant sunshine, moderate elevation, and absence of wind, and selected it as the site. Harriman visited several weeks later and agreed. The Brass Ranch was purchased for about $4 per acre and construction commenced that spring; it was built in seven months for $1.5 million. Publicist Steve Hannagan named the resort "Sun Valley" and developed the tag line: "Winter sports under a summer sun".Sauter, Van Gordon and Jennifer Tuohy (Winter 2010/11); “It Happened to Sun Valley;” Sun Valley Guide; p. 2 (Count Schaffgotsch returned to Austria and was killed on the Eastern Front during World War II.) The centerpiece of the new resort was the Sun Valley Lodge, which opened on December 21, 1936.
The 220-room, X-shaped lodge's exterior was constructed of concrete, poured inside rough-sawn forms. The wood grain was impressed on the concrete finish, which was acid-stained brown to imitate wood. The Swiss-style Sun Valley Inn (originally the Challenger Inn) and village were also part of the initial resort, opening in 1937. Hannagan wanted swimming pools at the resort, "so people won't think skiing is too cold."
Both the Lodge and the Inn have heated outdoor swimming pools, circular in shape. Hannagan had the pools designed this way, unique at the time, in the hope they would be widely photographed, providing free publicity, and it worked.
Chairlifts
The world's first chairlifts were installed on the resort's Proctor and Dollar mountains in the fall of 1936. (Proctor Mountain is northeast of Dollar Mountain). They have since been removed, but parts of the base of the Proctor Mountain chairlift can still be seen near the Proctor Mountain trail, along with a plaque identifying the area as the location of the world's first chairlift. Additionally, the original lift operator's station (now repainted) for the chairlift on Dollar Mountain is still standing. One of the early single chairlifts was transported to Cordova, Alaska in the 1970s where it now serves Mount Eyak Ski Area as the oldest operating chairlift in the world. The U.P. chairlift design was adapted by an engineer recalling banana loading conveyor equipment used for tropical fruit ships' cargo. Single-seat chairlifts were developed at the U.P. headquarters in Omaha in the summer of 1936. The chairlift went on to replace primitive rope tow and other adaptations seen at ski areas at the time. The original Proctor Mountain Ski Lift is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Celebrities
Author Ernest Hemingway completed For Whom the Bell Tolls, while staying in suite 206 of the Lodge in the fall of 1939. Averell Harriman had invited Hemingway and other celebrities, primarily from Hollywood, to the resort to help promote it.
Gary Cooper was a frequent visitor and hunting/fishing partner, as were Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Monroe, and several members of the Kennedy family. Hemingway was a part-time resident over the next twenty years, eventually relocating to Ketchum ("Papa" and his fourth wife are buried in the Ketchum Cemetery). The Hemingway Memorial, dedicated in 1966, is just off Trail Creek Road, about a mile northeast of the Sun Valley Lodge. You can still visit a number of locations that have Hemingway ties, including the Ketchum Cemetery.JaclyTravel.
Sun Valley was featured (and promoted) in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade, starring Sonja Henie, John Payne, Milton Berle, and bandleader Glenn Miller. Scenes were shot at the resort in March 1941. Sun Valley transfer local and future gold medalist Gretchen Fraser was the skiing stand-in for Henie.
In February 1958, the cast of "I Love Lucy" filmed an episode of their follow-up series of hour-long specials, known in syndication as "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour", at Bald Mountain.
In 1971, Apollo 15 astronaut and avid skier Jim Irwin, when stepping upon the surface of the Moon's Hadley–Apennine, exclaimed that it was like Sun Valley.
Adam West who played Batman on television had a ranch in the area. Other notable residents have included Scott Glenn, Richard Dreyfuss, Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke and Janet Leigh.
Sun Valley's oldest resident was former actress and silent movie star Barbara Kent. Another resident was actress Ann Sothern.
Hollywood actor, politician, and businessman, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a frequent visitor of Sun Valley and owns a residence in Ketchum, ID. He has a ski run named after him.
World War II During World War II, the resort was closed in 1942 and converted to a convalescent hospital for the U.S. Navy (Pacific Theater), which was operational in July 1943. It re-opened to the public in December 1946.
After the war, the resort's clinic operated on the third floor of the northern wing of the Sun Valley Lodge (wing closest to the Trail Creek Rd.) until the Sun Valley Community Hospital was built in 1961. That facility was named after Dr. John Moritz when he retired in 1973; the Nebraska-born surgeon had served as the resort's year-round physician for 33 years. The Moritz Hospital was closed shortly after the new St. Luke's branch hospital opened (south of Ketchum) in November 2000 and the Moritz building now serves as employee housing.
Bill Janss (1964–1977) After World War II, Harriman focused on his career in government service and the Union Pacific gradually lost interest in the resort. Rail service to Ketchum was discontinued in 1964 and that November the resort was sold to the Janss Investment Company, a major southern California real estate developer, headed by a former Olympic ski team member, Bill Janss (1918–96), founder of Snowmass. (Janss was an alternate on the 1940 team, but the games were cancelled due to the war). The railroad's management had called in the Janss Corporation as consultants and it was determined that it would take a lot of work and no less than $6 million for a face-lifting. The Union Pacific decided to sell and brothers Ed and Bill Janss bid just under $3 million.
During this Janss era of ownership, the north-facing Warm Springs area was developed, as well as Seattle Ridge, and condominium and home construction increased significantly. Seven chairlifts were added, and the number of trails increased from 33 to 62. The first two double chairs on Warm Springs were installed in series in 1965; the upper "Limelight" had a vertical rise, the greatest in the U.S. at the time for a chairlift.
Bill Janss bought out his brother's share of the resort and gained full control of Sun Valley in 1968. Snowmaking was introduced on a limited basis in the fall of 1975, covering up to an elevation of
The original Seattle Ridge double chairlift was installed in 1976, but due to a very poor snow year in 1976–77 it was not operated until December 20, 1977, christened by local legend Gretchen Fraser. Janss also has a ski run named after him, called "Janss Pass", to the skier's left of the Frenchman's chairlift. Janss' wife Ann, age 54, died in early 1973 while helicopter skiing near Sun Valley.
Later that year, Janss married Mrs. Glenn Cooper, a widow, family friend, and mother of five, including World Cup racer Christin Cooper, silver medalist in the women's giant slalom at the 1984 Winter Olympics.
Under Janss' ownership, the Elkhorn area southeast of Dollar Mountain was developed by the Sun Valley Company and Johns-Manville, beginning in 1972.
During excavation, ancient tools dating back nearly 7,000 years were discovered. Elkhorn's golf course was opened in the summer of 1975.
Earl Holding (1977–2013) Janss was running low on funds in 1977 and had entered into negotiations to sell the resort to the Walt Disney Company. While the negotiations were strung out by Disney, Earl Holding, a Utah businessman, learned of the situation through a small article in The Wall Street Journal and contacted Janss and arranged for a meeting. For about $12 million, Holding purchased Sun Valley through his company, Sinclair Oil, which operates the Grand America Hotels & Resorts. Holding was initially distrusted by many locals: "Earl is a Four Letter Word" was a popular bumper sticker in the late 1970s in Blaine County. But time proved that Holding did not buy the resort for property speculation; like his other assets he meant to operate and improve for the long-term. One of his first changes was the removal the archaic single-seat chairlift on Exhibition, replacing it with a triple. A daily lift ticket for Baldy during Holding's first season (1977–78) was priced at $13.