Postcards of America

The Postcards of America history book series explores the history of an area through American postcards. Take a road trip down Route 66 in the Missouri Ozarks or board one of San Francisco’s famous cable cars. Visit forgotten department stores, from Marshall Field’s to Hess’s in Pennsylvania. From early Hollywood to San Fernando Valley, these postcards of America send greetings from the past to eager readers with a passion for history.

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Kings Canyon National Park

$7.99

Sun Valley, Ketchum, and the Wood River Valley

$7.99

The Rose Bowl

$7.99

Rocky Mountain National Park

San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury

$7.99

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Sun Valley, Ketchum, and the Wood River Valley

9781467105361

$7.99

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 area'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.