Saks Ketchum

One of the biggest, swankest smart-shops in Manhattan is Saks Fifth Avenue. Its idea of an advertising superlative is to describe a dress, corset, necktie or suitcase as "very Saks Fifth Avenue." Astonished, therefore, were New Yorkers to read last week that Saks Fifth Avenue was about to branch to William Edgar Borah's potato paradise of Idaho. Name of the town: Ketchum.

Ketchum is a tank town on a branch line of Union Pacific R. R. Its new importance springs from the fact that it lies a mile above sea level in snowy Sun Valley at the heart of the Sawtooth Mountains. For in Sun Valley, U. P.'s Chairman William Averell Harriman is developing a winter resort with heavy emphasis on skiing. He envisions it as a St. Moritz of the U. S.

Sportsman son of a railroading father, Averell Harriman noted that 8,000 U. S. skiers went to Austria alone last year. He noted the Banff and Lake Louise developments of Canadian Pacific. So he invited Count Felix Schaffgotsch, a fellow sportsman from Austria, to roam the West until he found--on the U. P.--a likely spot for skiing.

The Count picked Sun Valley. The U. P. promptly bought 3,300 acres of skiing slopes, commissioned architects to plan a big lodge (capacity: 250). With Charles N. Proctor, Harvard's ski coach, U. P. engineers set to work on a lift which will carry the customers 1,500 ft. above the valley's floor. A modification of the ski-tow, which requires the effort of hanging on, the ski lift will reduce the physical exertion of skiing to almost nil. At regular intervals on a continuous cable moving 400 ft. per minute (a fast walk) are suspended chairs into which the skier may flop without removing his skis.

Sun Valley's prime selling points are the warm sun and the deep valley. Male skiers in U. P.'s promotion literature are usually pictured stripped to the waist and mopping their brows. Female skiers are generally reclining in ice block "Sunroom Igloos" getting a good "ice tan." An open-air, warm-water swimming pool for midwinter bathing is to be another Ketchum specialty. Other features: bobsledding, sleighriding, dog racing, skating rinks, "hot potato" rest huts.

Another smart U. P. merchandising move, like its streamline trains, special coach service and cheap dining-car meals, Sun Valley is Averell Harriman's pet project. He took his wife, daughter, Mrs. Marjorie Oelrichs ("Eddy") Duchin and Mrs. William S. Paley, wife of Columbia Broadcasting's president, on an inspection tour with Count Schaffgotsch last winter. The Count will provide a platoon of Austrian ski teachers for the resort.

Scheduled to open at Christmas, the whole development will cost U. P. around $1,000,000.

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