08/08/2026
🐑 Before the ski lifts, Ketchum was sheep country.
After the silver boom collapsed in the 1890s, the Wood River Valley turned to wool and lambs. By the 1910s–20s, Idaho had over 2.6 million sheep—six for every person. Ketchum became one of the biggest lamb shipping points in the West (second only to Sydney, Australia at its peak), with bands of sheep trailed through town each year from desert winter range to high mountain summer pasture.
Scottish and Basque herders built the industry that kept this valley alive for decades. Today the tradition lives on every October during the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, when a living river of wool still moves down Main Street.
History you can still hear in the bleating. 🏔️
