Wood River Museum of History + Culture

Upcoming Museum Programs

May

13

Regional History

Gathering History – Ketchum Buildings

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM | Wood River Museum of History and Culture

Regional History

Gathering History – Ketchum Buildings

May 13 | 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM | Wood River Museum of History and Culture

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.

Shoshone-Bannock Homelands: The Tribal Room, at the entrance to the Museum, honors the history and present-day of the Shoshone and Bannock Tribes, which have inhabited the lands of Central Idaho since time immemorial.

How in the World Did You Get to Sun Valley?: This exhibit explores the many reasons and ways that people have come to this hard-to-reach area over time. It is not easy to find Sun Valley and Central Idaho in general, here in the high desert mountains of the American West, but a wide range of people have done so…

Portrait of a Mountain: Over the past 150 years, the greater Ketchum and Sun Valley area has taken shape around, and been shaped by, the iconic Bald Mountain. This exhibit looks deeply at the mountain that defines the local landscape and affects life and imaginations here in so many ways.

The Cabinet of Wonders invites visitors to discover history by opening the doors and drawers of a fanciful cabinet that holds a great variety of regional history artifacts – from a telegraph key to vintage skis and sheep shears.

A Writer in New Country: Hemingway in 1939: This exhibit examines who Hemingway was when he arrived in 1939: a writer at his peak, a globetrotter drawn to remote places, a rugged outdoor enthusiast, and a man with complicated personal relationships.

Library Foyer Exhibit: Tracks & Traces: Reconstructing Chinese History in Southern Idaho

January-May 2025: In the late 19^th 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