By Kelley Moulton, Regional History Librarian
George Matsumoto was a well-known member of the tight-knit communities of Sun Valley and Ketchum. After work as a chef at the Ore House Restaurant, he was often behind his camera capturing his friends creating wild times. George often had a camera with him and captured candid and cheerful shots of The Wood River Valley’s people and events. One of his photos here is of Baldy with a Kneissl advertising balloon at Dollar.
Following George’s death in 1998, Paula Barovetto began to search for the scrapbooks containing George’s pictures. They had disappeared. Barovetto, who worked for the Regional History Department, spent six months looking for them, Eventually she was contacted by a relative of George’s, who found them in a Ketchum garage. There are 12 scrapbooks. Most of the documented memories are of Sun Valley and this area. Matsumoto also kept memories of his travels to Hawaii, New Zealand, the Eastern United States, and more.
In volume nine of the fifteen scrapbooks, one of the images shows a hot air balloon hovering over the base of Dollar Mountain in 1974 with Baldy in the background. On the balloon is the logo for Kneissl, a leading ski brand at the time. Other images from the two-page spread feature racers wearing race bibs from various ski races, including the Janet Leigh Celebrity Pro-Am Races, a sleigh pulled by horses, and group shots of people socializing around the ski mountains.
To find out more about the George Matsumoto Collection or other related historical images, contact the Center for Regional History at the Community Library. You can also find more photos online in the Regional History Digital Collection.
