Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Ketchum, ID

Ketchum is a city in Blaine County, Idaho, in the Wood River Valley, and it had a population of 3,555 at the 2020 census, up from 2,689 in 2010.

Ketchum was founded in 1880 as the smelting center of the Warm Springs mining district, first named Leadville, and the postal department renamed it for David Ketchum, a local trapper and guide who had staked a claim in the basin a year earlier.

Smelters built in the 1880s, including the Philadelphia Smelter on Warm Springs Road, processed large amounts of lead and silver for about a decade.

After the mining boom subsided in the 1890s, sheepmen drove their flocks north through Ketchum each summer, and by 1920 Ketchum had become the largest sheep-shipping center in the West.

After the Union Pacific Railroad developed Sun Valley in 1936, Ketchum became popular with celebrities, including Gary Cooper and Ernest Hemingway, who bought a home overlooking the Big Wood River near the city in the late 1950s.

Ernest Hemingway, his wife Mary, and his granddaughter Margaux Hemingway are buried in the Ketchum Cemetery, and the local elementary school, the Ernest Hemingway STEAM School, is named in his honor.

The 2020 census counted 1,899 households in Ketchum, and the median age was 50.8 years, with 27.0 percent of residents 65 years of age or older.

Ketchum is adjacent to Sun Valley, and the two communities share the same valley beneath Bald Mountain, with its skiing, along with fishing, hiking, trail riding, tennis, shopping, and art galleries.

Every Labor Day weekend, Ketchum hosts the Wagon Days festival, a themed carnival featuring Old West wagon trains, narrow ore wagons, and a parade.

Ketchum’s motto is “Small town, big life,” and air travel for the city is through Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey, approximately fifteen miles south.