Ketchum

The Bald Mountain Hot Springs

by

Kristine Bretall, Wood River Museum Community Engagement Manager

A person dives off a diving board into a pool surrounded by people.
The Bald Mountain Hot Springs Lodge Pool, taken by Martyn Mallory. Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History (F 08069)

School’s out for summer! For many across the country, swimming only happened in the summer time, but here in Ketchum, Bald Mountain Hot Springs was a year-round fixture on the south end of Main Street in Ketchum from 1927 until the late 1990s. Hot springs were the very first tourist attraction in the Wood River Valley and in the late 1880s in Ketchum, near the Warm Springs base of Baldy, Guyer Hot Springs was built and featured a hotel, a spring fed hot pool, tennis courts and a bandstand. But by the early 1900s, the distance from town and time had taken their toll on the place, and entrepreneur Carl Brandt bought the hotel and springs in 1927. 

Deciding that the future of the hot water lay in Ketchum, Brandt piped the hot water all along Warm Springs Road in wooden pipes to the corner of South Main and 1st Streets, to create a hot springs pool right in town (where the Limelight Hotel is now located). Hired for the project was the renowned Boise-based architecture firm, Tourtellotte and Hummel, who in Boise designed the Idaho State House, the Egyptian Theater, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, and Boise Junior High. 

The original design for the hot springs pool and lodge included a covered pool, rustic looking tourist cabins, and an elaborate, luxury two-story hotel with an enormous stone fireplace. However, with the Crash of 1929, instead of the full plan coming to fruition, Brandt scaled the project and built the pool without the cover, but surrounded by a full rectangular building that contained offices and changing rooms, and surrounding the pool building in a three-sided “U”, was a one-story motor lodge catering to the growing number of tourists traveling in their own cars.  

In 1935, Averell Harriman’s scout Count Felix von Schaffgotsch stayed here on his final stop of his search of Western states for the perfect place on the Union Pacific’s spur train lines to build a ski area. The hot springs pool flourished for decades and was a focal point of most kids’ youth in Ketchum. Kids learned to swim there, adults had parties and even “Aqua-Cades” in the 1950s and 1960s that featured synchronized swimming and diving, and a lot of clowning around.  

By the late 1990s, however, the wooden pipes and other equipment was failing and the site was sold. The motor lodge was moved to a private hunting ranch in Hagerman in the early 2000s and the sign for Bald Mountain Hot Springs now hangs in lounge at the Limelight Hotel.  

Note this story was originally published in June of 2025 in the Idaho Mountain Express.

The Flowers Sawmill

by

Liam Guthrie, Regional History Librarian

A long wooden building in a snowy mountain-scape, with workers, a wagon, and a sleigh in front.
The Flowers Sawmill at Adams Gulch, Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History (F 00088)

Adams Gulch is well known today for its popular hiking and biking trails, but the gulch’s history is deeply intertwined with the lumber industry and the Flowers Sawmill, which inhabited it for decades. This 1911 photo shows the sawmill that once stood at the mouth of Adams Gulch, along with wagons and sleds used to haul lumber.

The gulch’s first sawmill was built much further up the gulch, near the confluence with Eve Gulch, by Abijah Adams, for whom the gulch is named. Adams had already been operating a sawmill on Warm Springs Creek since 1881, but the mines and boom towns of the valley created a high demand for lumber, so Adams opened his second sawmill in Adams Gulch by 1886. Adams operated this sawmill until his death from illness in 1892. The sawmill was sold to Hobart Beamer of Hailey, who hired Wes Flowers to work in the sawmill.

In the busier summer logging season, Wes and his family would live at the sawmill. The sawmill had several houses, cabins, a boarding house, and a blacksmith shop. Wes worked at the sawmill and his wife Addie assisted with cooking for the sawyers living in the boarding house. During the winter, the rest of the family would return to Hailey so the children could attend school, while Wes remained in Adams Gulch to run the sawmill.

By April of 1907, Wes Flowers had bought the sawmill from Beamer. The Flowers family loved their summers in Adams Gulch and soon applied for a homestead at the mouth of the gulch. Here they built a frame house and a few outbuildings. In 1910, they relocated the sawmill from its old location up Adams Gulch to be nearer the homestead. Wes also took up farming and ranching on the homestead.

This photo shows the sawmill in the winter of 1911, which unfortunately would prove a tragic year for the Flowers family. While logging that winter in Adams Gulch, Wes and his eldest son Arthur were struck by an avalanche, killing them both. This was the start of hard times for the family, as Wes’s younger sons Eugene and George, respectively eighteen and fourteen, were forced to take over the sawmill and ranch to support their family.

Though the sawmill and ranch were mortgaged and even put up for sale multiple times, the Flowers family persevered. The Flowers Brothers ran the sawmill, planted crops, ranched cattle, and even trapped wild game in the winter to get by. The brothers were well-liked and respected in the community. Even in the dead of winter, there are many stories of Ketchum residents trekking up to Adams Gulch on skis to fetch the brothers for a dance or a potluck. The brothers eventually married two Swedish women from Illinois in a 1939 double wedding and built a log cabin for each couple on the Flowers homestead. They continued operating the sawmill all the way until George’s death in 1968.

Note this story was originally published in March of 2025 in the Idaho Mountain Express.

Gloria Batís and Club Rio

by

Mary Tyson, Director of the Center for Regional History

Gloria Batis lights candles on a cake in Club Rio while a crowd looks on.
Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History, Dorice Taylor Collection (F 06443)

Club Rio, where this photo was taken, was known for great Basque meals served by chef Gloria Batís. It was also frequented as a place to drink, to gamble, and for Basques to board for a night or two. Gloria and her husband, Pete Batís, started the club in 1941, and lived in the back. It was in a central location on the north side of Sun Valley Rd. just behind where Enoteca is now.

Gloria served traditional fare in the Rio such as chicken and rice, potatoes with garlic and parsley, baked lamb, shrimp, fish, fried pimientos (peppers), and mina salsa (chili sauce). Many luminaries ate her food. Ernest Hemingway, who was known to love Basque cooking, was a frequent early customer and followed her from her first club restaurant, the Idaho Club on Main St. to the Rio. He would come in with Martha Gellhorn, and sometimes brought in pressed ducks, that he had pressed himself, and Gloria cooked them in the oven for him.

When WWII started, the Sun Valley Lodge closed and became a Naval Convalescent Hospital. Gloria and Pete shut down Club Rio for the war years as well, though they cooked many meals for the navy servicemen during that period.

In this photo, Gloria, center, is lighting birthday cake candles for a party. The other man helping her light candles is the distinguished British Ambassador, Archibald John Kerr. Gloria and Pete closed the Rio in 1951, and she went to work as the chef for Trail Creek Cabin for twenty more years.

Note this story was originally published in December of 2024 in the Idaho Mountain Express.

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