Turning history into a celebration: How the Trailing of the Sheep Festival revives the Wood River Valley’s roots
It’s been named to several best-of lists during its now 30-year existence, and there are good reasons why. The five-day Trailing of the Sheep Festival in Ketchum draws thousands of people every year to the Wood River Valley in early October.
The main event takes place next Sunday at noon, as hundreds of sheep are paraded down Main Street on their way to their winter home. It’s a nod to the historical roots before the fanfare, one that involved both Scottish and Basque influence, a quick rift between the community and the ranchers who helped grow the land, and a generational rancher who helped bring them back to their roots.
Early Days
In the early 1860s, the gold rush in the Boise Basin and Wood River Valley was just beginning, bringing an influx of people to the area, including the Basques and Scots. While some worked in the nearby mines, others found work herding and tending to the sheep.
In the late 1860s, John Hailey of Tennessee found his way to the area, bringing with him a small flock of sheep. Hailey, after whom the city is named, is considered one of the first to bring sheep to the valley.
At that time, there were about 14,000 sheep in Idaho.
By 1900, “more than 2 million sheep had been raised or trailed through the Wood River Valley,” according to Blaine County, and by 1920, Ketchum was “one of the largest sheep shipping centers in the United States,” and just second to Sydney, Australia.
When the gold rush died down, workers turned to ranching.
During the Great Depression, the price of lamb declined, and earning a living as a rancher was difficult. A man by the name of Jack Lane “was one of the few people who extended credit to sheepmen.” Lane owned a general store on what is now Main Street and Sun Valley Road in Ketchum, a place where ranchers would come to swap stories and learn of the latest on sheep prices across the country. It was also near the rail line that used to run through town, which is how the sheep were imported and exported out of the area.
1990s
By this time, the human population outweighed the sheep population, and the Blaine County Recreation District (BCRD) wanted to build a paved recreational pathway connecting the different cities in the Wood River Valley.
Laura Musbach Drake, Executive Director of the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, told BoiseDev that BCRD approached ranchers in the area because the path would intersect where sheep typically roamed, grazed, and trailed for the last 150 years. She said the ranchers agreed, but that their sheep would still trail in the area, adding that everyone agreed.
But when the path went in, and people began using it, they ran into issues.
“As you might imagine, they were finding some unsightly things in their rollerblade wheels and their bicycle wheels and their skateboard wheels,” Musbach Drake said. So, she said they called John Peavey, a third-generation sheep and cattle rancher who was running for office at the time.
“(They) said, ‘Get your sheep off our bike path,’ and John took that as an opportunity to say, ‘Well, maybe you don’t understand the history of the community that you’re living in. Why don’t you come have coffee with me at the local coffee shop, and then we’ll trail the sheep together.’ And so that started as a very informal gathering, and then from year to year, more and more people were coming,” Musbach Drake said.
That first meeting, and unofficial trailing, happened in the fall of 1996. After that, the curiosity continued to grow.
“It has been said that teachers were bringing schoolchildren,” Musbach Drake said. “And as it continued to grow, Carol Waller, who ran our chamber at the time, went to Diane Josephy Peavey, John’s wife, and said, ‘We have a festival here.’”
2026
This year, the Festival celebrates 30 years since that initial meeting between the community and ranchers. On Sunday, October 11, the 950 sheep you’ll see trailing down Main Street will be headed to Jaz Ranch in Gooding. Those sheep will march by Lane’s general store, which is now home to a restaurant called Enoteca.
Other bands of sheep will take more traditional routes to get to their southern destinations.
In addition to the main event, there are dozens of others happening in the days leading up to it: sheep dog trials, cooking classes, cheese-making classes, farm-to-table dinners (which have already sold out), Q&A panels with ranchers, “Sheep Tales,” and more.
“We were born truly out of a need to educate the community about the history and culture of the community in which they lived, and in which sheep are still trailing up and down the valley to this day, 30 years later,” Drake said.