Once the largest silver producer in the world, Wallace became notorious for labor uprisings, hard drinking, gambling and prostitution. As late as 1991, illegal brothels openly flourished because locals believed that sex work prevented rape and bolstered the economy, so long as it was regulated and confined to a particular area of town. The madams enjoyed unprecedented status as influential businesswomen, community leaders and philanthropists, while elsewhere a growing aversion to the sex trade drove red-light districts underground. Dr. Heather Branstetter's research features previously unpublished archival materials and oral histories as she relates the intimate details of this unlikely story.

Garrett Freightlines began in 1913 in Pocatello, Idaho, as the first motorized luggage transfer service for railroad passengers. Starting with the purchase of a single one-cylinder REO truck, the company expanded rapidly throughout the Intermountain West and became the fifth-largest motor freight carrier in the United States, with routes from the West Coast to the Midwest. The company introduced a number of key innovations to the interstate truck transport industry, including the early adoption of diesel engines and refrigerated trailer units, research to improve vehicle safety and efficiency, and the introduction of triple trailers. The history of Garrett Freightlines is also an account of its people. Images of America: Garrett Freightlines showcases vintage photographs that tell a success story of 20th-century transportation in the western United States and highlight Garrett's dedicated employees who helped build a family-like culture and formed the economic backbone of their community.

Sun Valley and Ketchum are in Idaho's Wood River Valley, gateway to backcountry and wilderness areas. Settlers first arrived in the early 1880s, attracted by a silver rush. In 1883, the railroad connected the valley to the world beyond its borders and brought in outside capital. During the silver depression of the 1890s, mining was replaced by sheep raising, and the area later shipped more sheep than anywhere except Australia. In 1936, during the Great Depression, Union Pacific board chairman Averell Harriman built Sun Valley, the country's first destination ski resort, spending $2.5 million in two years ($45 million today). Sun Valley offered a lavish lifestyle, a luxurious lodge, Austrian ski instructors, and chairlifts invented by Union Pacific engineers. Known as America's St. Moritz, it was a magnet for beautiful people and serious skiers. It had a monopoly on grandeur for decades and influenced ski areas that developed later. Subsequent owners Bill Janss and the Holding family expanded and improved Sun Valley, making it one of the world's premier year-round resorts.

Union Pacific Railroad's Averell Harriman had a bold vision to restore rail passenger traffic decimated by the Great Depression: create ski tourism in Idaho's remote Wood River Valley. A $1.5 million investment opened Sun Valley in December 1936 with a lavish lodge, luxury shopping, Austrian ski instructors and extensive backcountry skiing. Prestigious tournaments featured the world's best skiers. Chairlifts invented by Union Pacific engineers serviced skiers quickly and comfortably. Ski instructor and filmmaker Otto Lang recalled that seemingly overnight, it became "a magnet for the 'beautiful people,' a meeting place for movie stars and moguls, chairmen and captains of industry, Greek shipping tycoons, and peripatetic playboys--and playgirls--of the international social set." After World War II and Harriman's departure, Union Pacific's willingness to pay the $500,000 yearly subsidy waned. Bill Janss purchased it in 1964 and reimagined it as a year-round resort but lacked the capital for growth. Sinclair Oil owners Earl and Carol Holding acquired it in 1977, revitalizing it into a premier resort with international status. Award-winning ski historian John W. Lundin celebrates America's first destination ski resort using unpublished Union Pacific documents, oral histories, contemporaneous accounts and more than 150 historic images.

While cameras rolled, the newly completed Teton Dam collapsed shortly before noon on June 5, 1976. The resulting wall of water, 80 billion gallons strong, battered town after town during its three-day rampage through the Upper Snake River Valley in eastern Idaho. Impounding the flood-prone Teton River, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dam failed during the reservoir's initial fill, ripping homes from foundations, drowning thousands of livestock, and stripping acres of valuable topsoil. Amazingly only 11 lives were lost during the disaster, as most residents heeded the flood warnings. Presenting photographs from local newspapers, archives, museums, historical societies, and witnesses, this book documents the dam's spectacular failure, the tremendous damage, and the Herculean cleanup and rebuilding process following one of the worst engineering disasters of the last 50 years. Today the investigation into why the 305-foot-tall earth-fill dam crumbled-ironically a dam built for flood control-still prompts debate.