The War in the Lodge: When Sun Valley Became a Navy Hospital
Near Sun Valley, Idaho
In nineteen forty-two, during the war that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sun Valley Resort closed its doors to skiers and celebrities and prepared for a different purpose entirely. The United States Navy requisitioned the property. By July of nineteen forty-three, the Sun Valley Lodge and its associated buildings had been converted into a naval convalescent hospital for servicemen recovering from wounds and illness sustained in the Pacific Theater.
The transformation was substantial. Rooms that had held movie stars and socialites were reconfigured for patients. Facilities that had catered to luxury recreation were adapted to medical rehabilitation.
The mountain air and the surrounding landscape, which the resort had always promoted as its central attraction, were now offered as conditions favorable to recovery. Several thousand sailors and naval personnel passed through during the years it operated, recovering from injuries, tropical diseases, and the physical toll of Pacific combat. The Navy maintained the property with care, and when the war ended and the service prepared to return the buildings, the lodge and its infrastructure were in good condition.
The resort reopened to the public in December of nineteen forty-six, exactly ten years after it had first opened. The lobby, the dining room, and much of the original furnishings were intact. The lodge had gone through the entire war and come out the other side still recognizably itself.
