Liam Guthrie, Regional History Librarian
It can be easy to imagine the past as a quieter, emptier place sometimes, and in some places it certainly was. But this photograph of Ketchum’s Main Street circa 1938 definitively shows that Ketchum was not one such place. The street is teeming with pedestrians even on a cold winter day. A policeman directs the flow of cars entering the crowded road. A couple men appear to be ski joring — skiing while being pulled by horses — down the middle of the road as onlookers watch on. It certainly is a lively scene.
The buildings and stores lining Main Street also tell a great story of 1930’s Ketchum. Lane Mercantile and Griffith Brothers Grocery call back to the town’s pre-Sun Valley ranching roots. Clubs and casinos like The Alpine Café and Bar, The Sawtooth Club, and Frontier Casino show the thriving gambling scene in Ketchum, driven by the wealth flowing into Sun Valley in droves. Meanwhile the Conoco and the Westcott Oil Co. gas and service stations speak to the growth of the automobile occurring across the country in this time period. Other buildings lining Main street include hotels, a sporting goods store, and a laundry.
Every inch of this photograph is rich with detail, each telling its own story about Ketchum’s history: The men leaning over the false front of The Alpine’s roof. The woman crossing the street, pulling her jacket closed against the cold. The cars stopped on the opposite end of the street as crowds of people, and a dog, walk across. Each is its own vignette of life in Ketchum in 1938.
It is likely that many in this crowd have bets on the skiers about to race down the middle of main street, eagerly awaiting the result. It is just as likely that the people waiting in their cars are annoyed at the stoppage and eager to be on their way. Still others may just be trying to cross the street and get their weekend shopping done. Afterall, the people in this photo ultimately aren’t all that different from us today.
Note this story was originally published in September of 2024 in the Idaho Mountain Express.
