History

Ketchum 1880 to 1885

On April 3, 1880, a party consisting of John H. Lewis, Charles Awan and Isaac I. Lewis, left Helena, Montana in their covered wagons and headed for the Wood River Valley in Idaho.

On the morning of May 3, 1880, the first tent was pitched on the present townsite by Isaac I. Lewis. A town plat was immediately drawn up, and the settlement was named “Leadville”. The first lots in Leadville sold for only $2.00. The town became the center of the Warm Springs mining district. After the US Postal Service decided that the name was too common, the town was renamed "Ketchum" after David Ketchum, local trapper and guide.

Between 1880 and 1885 the town of Ketchum grew and prospered:

• A Newspaper called “The Ketchum Keystone” was established
• Philadelphia Mining and Smelting Company opened
• Ketchum Fast Freight Line was developed
• The Oregon Short line (now Union Pacific) opened
• First ore shipped from Ketchum from Elkhorn Mine (August 1880)
• Grew to more than 2,000 residents
•  13 saloons, four restaurants, two hotels, several bordellos, two banks and a drug store were operating
• A bookstore and brewery, lumberyard and three blacksmiths opened
• Six liveries and seven stages per day operated