Upcoming Museum Programs
Treaty History Unpacked: Shoshone-Bannock Reserved Treaty Rights, Tribal Homelands, and Governance Past and Present
Switzerland Field Trip Information Session
Treaty History Unpacked: Shoshone-Bannock Reserved Treaty Rights, Tribal Homelands, and Governance Past and Present
How, When, and Where to Find Us
Wood River Museum of History and Culture
580 Fourth Street East, Suite 130, Ketchum, Idaho 83340
Entry to the Museum is FREE.
Open: Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
208-726-8118
Email us here.
Sunday | closed |
Monday | closed |
Tuesday | 10:00am - 6:00pm |
Wednesday | 10:00am - 6:00pm |
Thursday | 10:00am - 6:00pm |
Friday | 10:00am - 6:00pm |
Saturday | 10:00am - 6:00pm |
Online Collections Database
Find information and images from the Museum’s collection online. You can search, view, and download images of people, objects, and historic photographs. Click here to get started.
Hemingway House Online Collection
The database for the Ernest and Mary Hemingway House and Preserve Collection is now available to the public. You can search or browse to see artifacts that belong to the house. To look through the online collection click here.
All New Exhibits
All of the exhibits at the Wood River Museum include interactive elements where visitors are encouraged to write, type, talk, and remember – because we all are part of history! More here.
Library Foyer Exhibit: Tracks & Traces: Reconstructing Chinese History in Southern Idaho
January-May 2025: In the late 19th Century, many Chinese men migrated from California to Idaho in pursuit of gold and the promise of Manifest Destiny. Anti-Chinese sentiment grew in the West, prompting President Chester Arthur to sign the Chinese Exclusion Act. As a result, racial discrimination grew more intense and more violent. Very little is known about the many Chinese residents of the Wood River Valley. Tracks & Traces tells the story of their ghosts. More here.
Past Exhibits
2014-2022: Inspired exhibits began rotating and covered topics such as ski history, Ernest Hemingway in Idaho, the history of sheep ranching, ice skating in Sun Valley, and the documentation of cultural change. See more here.
Leading the Way
Our Team
Director of Regional History Mary Tyson, Regional History Librarian Liam Guthrie, Museum Community Engagement Manager Kristine Bretall, and Museum Collections Specialist Ellie Norman.
Our History
In 2014, The Community Library Association in Ketchum, Idaho assumed operation of the museum known formerly as the Ski and Heritage Museums. More here.
Our Collections
The Wood River Museum is a collecting museum and showcases exhibits for the public about central Idaho. The Museum’s collection and programming is designed to promote a greater sense of place.
A Note from the Executive Director
The richness and resilience of a community depends on its capacity to tend and tell its many stories. That is the goal of The Community Library, and that is the goal of the Wood River Museum of History and Culture. Ten years ago, the Library became the custodian of the Ketchum and Sun Valley Ski and Heritage Museum, because it aligned with the work of the Library’s Center for Regional History, and because the Library offered a solid foundation for ongoing historic preservation and exhibition. Now the Library is amplifying that work, presenting the Museum in a new location with new infrastructure and a new name. The message is: History matters here; it is nuanced and ongoing; and we all are part of it.
~ Jenny Emery Davidson
