Posts

In the mid-1930s, Averell Harriman, President of the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) sought a location for a ski resort in the mountainous west to spur passenger traffic. Harriman found a location for a resort outside of Ketchum, Idaho and hired Steve Hannagan to do for Sun Valley what he had done for Miami Beach – turn the ski resort into a nationally recognized vacation destination.

Hannagan agreed to work with Harriman, even though Hannagan lived by the mantra on his Times Square billboard that – “When it is winter in New York it is summer in Miami.” He believed that bitter cold blasts of winter were either to be avoided or leavened by the warmth of good Irish whisky while enjoying a convivial conversation with his friends in the Stork Club. When Hannagan rode into the snow-covered mountain valley, he was surprised to find that the valley that did not live up to his fear that it would be wind swept arctic desert. Here is how he described his mid-winter arrival into the mountain valley soon to be known as ‘Sun Valley’.

“All I had on was a light tweed suit; I was used to the sun down in Miami Beach, and it was colder than hell. So we got out and looked around and all I could see [was] just a goddam field of snow … This is strictly ridiculous; … but we walked around some more with my shoes full of snow, and then the sun came out. It began to feel pretty good, so I opened my coat. Then I took it off. Pretty soon, I opened my vest. Then I began to sweat. You know the temperature got up to 97 degrees there in the sun and the snow still doesn’t melt. When you think of winter sports, you usually think of the cold don’t you? “[1]

http://skiresorts.com/assets/upload/4/63jg7lf0lc53792b.jpg

Looking from the Future Site of the Ski Resort Lodge toward Bald Mountain [2]

Steve – Did He Name Sun Valley? Ketchum 

Steve Hannagan told the story that his trip into the mountain valley was the genesis for the name of the Harriman resort. Although the winter temperature in the snow-covered valley averaged 17.5 degrees F, the warmth of the sun convinced Hannagan that he could sell Harriman’s resort as a place for “Winter sports under a summer sun.”[3] From this creative insight came the valley’s evocative name “Sun Valley.”

The locals in the nearby time of Ketchum, Idaho were not keen about using the name Sun Valley instead of Ketchum. Steve “told them that there might be a few names less sexy, but he couldn’t think of any.”[4] Besides the name was vulnerable to wiseacres who could call it “Ketchum & Fleece-um!

Before the Sun Valley resort came to town, the only excitement in Ketchum was a rustic Casino whose main customers were rough cowboys looking for weekend gambling, drinking, and women. Travelers dropping into the Ketchum Casino did so either because they were lost or wanted to rough with local rough necks.

Ketchum Casino[5]

The following photo of UP passenger trains parked at the Ketchum depot depicts Harriman’s business goal for Ketchum – a starting point for passengers headed to Sun Valley. Nevertheless, many visitors to Sun Valley returned to Ketchum looking for excitement around the gaming tables at the casino rather than spending a sedate evening looking at flames in fireplace.

https://sunvalleymag.com/content/uploads/2016/05/Screen%20shot%202013-12-12%20at%2010_54_51%20AM.png

What Harriman Wanted at Sun Valley Union Pacific Passenger Trains[6]

End Notes

  1. Ogibene, Peter J. (December 1, 1984); “At the first ski spa, stars outshone the sun and snow”; Smithsonian; p. 112.
  2. Photograph of Sun Valley and Bald Mountain (retrieved January 19, 2014); Ski Resorts. Com; http://skiresorts.com/sun-valley
  3. Sauter, Van Gordon and Jennifer Tuohy (Winter 2010/11); “It Happened to Sun Valley”; Sun Valley Guide; http://www.svguide.com/w11/sunvalley.html (retrieved April 1, 2011); p. 2.
  4. Cutlip, Scott (1994); The Unseen Power; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers; Hillsdale, New Jersey; p. 264.
  5. Photography of Ketchum Casino (Retrieved August 22, 2017); https://www.google.com/search?q=ketchum+idaho+old+casino+photographs&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgycmOpezVAhWD5SYKHRZMBW0QsAQIJQ&biw=1366&bih=662#imgdii=xGkbQK-SQXAwyM:&imgrc=uQtx480R53PjiM:
  6. Photo of Union Pacific Rail Station at Sun Valley Railway (Retrieved August 21, 2017); https://sunvalleymag.com/content/uploads/2016/05/Screen%20shot%202013-12-12%20at%2010_54_51%20AM.png

The Hollywood and social celebrities that Steve Hannagan enticed to Sun Valley paled in comparison to arranging for Ernest Hemingway’s visit at the resort. In the fall of 1939, Hannagan heard that Hemingway was in Montana on a hunting trip, Hannagan immediately sent, Gene Van Guilder, his resident associate at Sun Valley, to find Hemingway and offer him gratis room and services at the Resort lodge.

Guilder successfully found Hemingway and checked him into Suite 206, a choice corner suite. At the lodge, Hemingway and his family found that they could sign for anything with no expectation of payment. His son, Jack, said that signing for something “was sort of a sinister thing.”[1] Martha Gellhorn, a world-famed journalist in her own right joined Hemingway at Sun Valley while she auditioned for the part of the newest Mrs. Hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gellhorn, at the Sun Valley Lodge in Idaho.

Hemingway and Gellhorn at Sun Valley[2]

Hemingway remained at Sun Valley from early fall of 1939 until December 9th, editing his latest novel, For Whom the Bells Toll, his story of the Spanish Civil War. The next year, Hemingway returned to Sun Valley to meet Gary Cooper, who would play the lead in the movie version of the novel.[3]

Related image

Gary Cooper, For Whom the Bells Toll[4]

Despite his reputation as a heavy drinker, Hemingway avoided alcohol while working on a novel and kept to a strict early morning regimen of writing, editing, and rereading drafts. In the afternoons, he and Gellhorn frequently traveled to Shoshone for upland pheasant and dove hunting and to Silver Creek for duck and goose hunting.[5]

http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2006/06/11/HAWKING_HEMINGWAY_06-11-2006_F97PH2G.jpg

Ernest Hemingway[6]

During Hemingway’s stay at the lodge, his publicity photos began to reach the national press carrying the dateline Sun Valley. The nearby picture of Hemingway working on his novel captures all that can be said of a well-staged publicity shot. Showing him editing a chapter with the mountains as a trope for his iconic features as a writer and a man’s man. Steve Hannagan got something else of inestimable, historic value from Hemingway’s free room and board – a line about Sun Valley in For Whom the Bells Toll.

Hemingway and the Death of Hannagan’s Chief Publicist for Sun Valley

Hemingway’s love of bird hunting involved him in the sad ending of Gene Van Guilder, who accidentally shot himself while hunting ducks. It happened when another hunter in the boat fired his gun and the recoil upset Van Guilder’s balance. Van Guilder’s gun accidentally fired and was fatally wounded.[7] Nothing could have been done because Van Guilder’s wound was too deep, and they were too far from help.

Related image

Ernest Hemingway with Gene Van Guilder[8]

Although Hemingway was not on the hunting trip, he accepted the grim duty of telling Hannagan that Van Guilder had died from a hunting accident. Hemingway also wrote the eulogy for Van Guilder’s funeral, which included the poignant phrase; “Best of all he loved the fall.”[9] There is a statue of a young Hemingway at his home in Ketchum that bears his tribute to Van Guilder.

According to Edward Ross’s research on Hannagan, Hemingway and Hannagan regularly corresponded until his death in the early fifties. Hemingway’s letters were “studded with four-letter words and anatomical references that [made Margaret Ray, Hannagan’s Executive Assistant blush].” [10] However, Hemingway’s usually wrote chatty letters about his work. For instance, the following quote is from a letter in 1950 written by Hemingway from his finca outside Havana.

“Dear Steve: Glad to hear from you kid … Have done two sets of galleys and now [we] are waiting for the page proofs [He was completing Across the River and into the Trees.] Have worked on it 18 months and gone over it about 200 times and I swear to Christ that when it is finished I will not go around reading passages from it to my friends at the Stork [Club].

Hemingway penned a side note on the letter to Hannagan saying “This book is very good. Don’t let someone knock you off.” [11] Steve treasured all his letters from Hemingway and was proud to correspond with an author considered at the time to be America’s greatest living novelist. Sadly, nearly all the correspondence between the two disappeared after Hannagan’s death when a custodian mistakenly carried his files to an incinerator rather than to storage.

End Notes

  1. Oppenheimer, Doug and Jim Poore (1976); Sun Valley; Beatty Books; Boise, Idaho; p. 147.
  2. Corrigan, Maureen (May 5, 2014); Photograph of Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn at Sun Valley (Retrieved September 12, 2017); “In ‘Hotel Florida’ Three Couples Chronicle the Spanish Civil War”; WUNC; http://wunc.org/post/hotel-florida-three-couples-chronicle-spanish-civil-war#stream/0.
  3. The Editors of American Heritage (November 1998; Volume 49, Issue 7; Near Perfect Conditions”; American Heritage Magazine; (Retrieved March 31, 2011);http://www.americanheritage.com/content/near-perfect-conditions.
  4. Photograph of Gary Cooper, “For Whom the Bells Toll” (Retrieved September 13, 2017); http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Summaries/F/For%20Whom%20the%20Bell%20Tolls.htm.
  5. Foley, Gregory (Fall 2005); “Best of all he loved the fall;” Sun Valley Guide (retrieved April 23, 2014); sunvalleyguide.com; http://www.svguide.com/svg_hem.htm.
  6. Photograph of Ernest Hemingway at His Typewriter; (June 11, 2006); (Retrieved September 13, 2017); “Hemingway Business Still Brisk at Sun Valley Lodge”; The Spokesman-Review; http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2006/06/11/HAWKING_HEMINGWAY_06-11-2006_F97PH2G.jpg.
  7. Arnold, Lloyd (1977); Hemingway High on the Wild; Grosset & Dunlap Publishers; New York; p. 26.
  8. Bossick, Karen (September 16, 2016); Photograph of Ernest Hemingway with Gene Van Guilder (Retrieved September 13, 2017); “Ernest Hemingway – A Conflicted ‘Rogue Male?’”; Eye on Sun Valley; http://www.eyeonsunvalley.com/Story_Reader/3057/Ernest-Hemingway%E2%80%94A-Conflicted-%27Rogue-Male?%27-/.
  9. Arnold, Lloyd (1977); Hemingway High on the Wild; Grosset & Dunlap Publishers; New York; p. 29.
  10. Ross, Edward Ellis;Hannagan Research Document; source: New York University Archives; p. 179.
  11. Ross, Edward Ellis;Hannagan Research Document; source: New York University Archives; p. 180.