BY KAREN BOSSICK

Get a glimpse of glamorous Sun Valley Resort in the exhibit “Captured in Sun Valley: Union Pacific Publicity Photographs.”

The exhibit at the Community Library center for Regional History in Ketchum’s Forest Service Park features  photographs taken in Sun Valley for the Union Pacific Railroad Publicity Department during the 1940s and 1950s.

The photographs include one of dog sledding at early Sun Valley Resort, the yellow Sun Valley buses that took people from Sun Valley Village to Dollar Mountain, early Nordic skiing along Trail Creek and instructor Sigi Engl.

“They’re beautiful,” said Nicole Potter, the Regional History Museum librarian who curated the exhibit. “The color photographs have a very warm tone to them.”

Union Pacific photographers took staged photos of Sun Valley employees posing as guests doing a wide range of winter activities, including alpine and Nordic skiing, taking part in horse-drawn sleigh rides, ice skating, dining and dancing.

After the photographs were used in marketing materials, they ended up in the Union Pacific Publicity Department photo morgue in Omaha, Neb.

Dottie Thomas, head librarian at the Community Library during the 1980s, rescued more than 500 of the publicity transparencies that were scheduled to be disposed of in a Nebraska landfill in 1982.

The photographs offer a wonderful glimpse into the past, said Potter.

“I think anyone who enjoys winter recreation in the Sun Valley area will be interested in seeing the similarities and differences between how visitors and locals enjoyed the season then and how they do now,” she said.

The exhibit will run through the ski season. The museum is open from 1 to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Admission is free.