THE SISTER CITIES OF SUN VALLEY, IDAHO AND KITZBUHEL, AUSTRIA
(Published with photos in the Winter 2019/2020 edition of Sun Valley Magazine here https://sunvalleymag.com/articles/tale-of-two-cities/
It is well known that Sun Valley, Idaho and Austria have been connected since before Sun Valley was born. In 1935 Averell Harriman, Chairman of Union Pacific Railroad and an avid skier, hired his skiing friend Austrian Count Felix Schaffgotsch to ride his trains around the mountains of western America in search of the perfect location for a great American destination ski resort. He stipulated, “…find an area where the powder is dry, the sun shines all day, and the harsh winds of winter don’t penetrate.” And Harriman stipulated that the resort had to be on or close to the Union Pacific line. After several weeks of searching the Count heard about the small mining community of Ketchum, Idaho at the end of a Union Pacific spur. He arrived and quickly wired Harriman, “This combines more delightful features than any place I have ever seen in Switzerland, Austria or the U.S. for a winter resort.” Within eight months Harriman had bought 4,300 acres of ranch land east of Ketchum from the Heiss family, built the Sun Valley Lodge, installed ski lifts and opened the Sun Valley Resort in time for the 1936 ski season. The rest is history, a significant part of it determined by Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany and the approach of WWII, a dynamic familiar to ski historians but less so to today’s general skiing public. In my view, this latter point deserves more discussion than it receives. Even before the Anschluss by which Germany ‘annexed’ Austria in 1938, Hans Hauser, an Austrian, was the first ski school director in Sun Valley. Anschluss means ‘connection’ and that one caused many of the best skiers of Austria to flee their home country and immigrate to America. Many of them were young men who had spent their lives skiing. Two of the most famous Austrian skiers to immigrate to America were Hannes Schneider and Sigi Engl, and they were both enormous influences on the development of American skiing and ski resorts. That is, immigrants fleeing tyranny in their homeland have long proved to be significant assets to America, as evidenced by the history of American skiing and the community and culture of Sun Valley, Idaho. Engl, who was from Kitzbuhel, was one of the great ski racers of his time, winning Kitzbuhel’s Hahnenkahm and the Austrian National Championships twice. He was also a fine and popular instructor who immigrated to America in 1937 to teach skiing at Badger Pass in Yosemite before moving to Sun Valley in 1939. He was Director of the Sun Valley Ski School from 1952 until 1972. Engl was responsible for bringing some of the best skiers/instructors of his hometown, 5355. 43 miles away, to Sun Valley. They include:
Christian Pravda, World Champion and one of the greatest ski racers in history. His son, Chris, is still a member of the ski school.
Konrad Staudinger was a member of Austria’s 1956 Olympic Ice Hockey Team. After the Olympics he moved to Sun Valley and was one of the most popular members of the ski school for 50 years before retiring and moving back to Kitzbuhel in 2008. He still visits Sun Valley once a year.
Rainer Kolb, though born in East Germany, moved to Kitzbuhel as a child and learned to ski, race and teach there and was director of the Sun Valley Ski School from 1974 until 1999. He was also producer of Sun Valley’s Ice Show.
Hans Thum moved from Kitzbuhel to Sun Valley more than 50 years ago and is still working on the ski school. His son, Hannes, graduated from the Sun Valley Community School in 2003 and returned in 2009 as a science teacher and trip leader for the school’s Outdoor Program.
Other Kitzbuhelers who have worked on the ski school include Heinz Achhorner, Karl Beznoska, Rudi Erler, Peter Erler and Heiner Koch.
In 1967 Sun Valley and Kitzbuhel officially became sister cities.
According to the Sisters Cities website, “The U.S. Sister Cities movement was founded on September 11, 1956 at a White House Conference on Citizen Diplomacy led by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower who described its purpose as “…to help build the road to an enduring peace” and “work out not one method but thousands of methods by which people can gradually learn a little bit more of each other.” Originally part of People to People and then the National League of Cities (NLC), Sister Cities International (SCI) became a separate, non-profit corporation in 1967. Today, SCI is the nation’s foremost citizen diplomacy movement with more than 2,300 communities participating in 130 countries. Appropriately enough, since the movement was inspired by a great WWII military leader who knew more about the true costs of war and the true values of peace than most, Sun Valley’s other sister city is Yamanouchi, Japan.
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