Chinese migrants were some of the first and most numerous participants in Idaho’s 19th century gold rushes. In mining communities across Idaho, Chinese residents often made up more than half of the local population and an even higher percentage of gold seekers. This presentation from Dr. Renae Campbell will focus on one such community, Southern Idaho’s Boise Basin, where a rich archaeological and historical record allows us to reconstruct what daily life was like for some of the thousands of Chinese individuals who, despite facing racial discrimination and an evolving array of exclusionary laws, established diverse lives and livelihoods during Idaho’s gold rush era. This program is part of the 2025 Winter Read. Renae Campbell is a historical archaeologist and the Director of the University of Idaho’s Asian American Comparative Collection (AACC), a non-profit facility dedicated to promoting research on Asian American heritage and material culture. Renae specializes in Chinese and Japanese diaspora archaeology, archaeologies of race and gender, and the history of the rural American West. In 2016, she created the Historical Japanese Ceramic Comparative Collection (www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/hjccc/), one of the first online resources for identifying archaeological Japanese ceramics. Her 2023 dissertation, The Once Bustling Basin: A Historical Archaeology of …

In September of 1885, the Chinese coal miners who were brought into Wyoming as strikebreakers were ambushed and driven out of the town of Rock Springs at gunpoint by white coal miners. Teow Lim Goh’s “Bitter Creek” revisits this dark episode—known today as the Rock Springs Massacre—revealing the stories beneath this violent, decade-long culmination of labor struggles and racial hostilities in the Union Pacific Coal Mines. Through the eyes of the struggling railroad workers, their families, and the corporation working them to the bone, Teow Lim Goh creates an ode to buried history that blends epic tradition with modern composition and astonishing empathy to ask the question, “What turns ordinary people into monsters?” This program is part of the 2025 Winter Read, a community-wide program. This year we’re reading “Four Treasures of the Sky,” by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, set in 19th century Idaho and whose main characters hear of the Rock Springs Massacre as they face their own threats of violence in the small mining town of Pierce. Books will be available for pre-order from Torrey House Press, which is publishing the book in May 2025. Teow Lim Goh is a poet and essayist who writes from the nexus of …

To kick off the 2025 Winter Read of “Four Treasures of the Sky” by Jenny Tinghui Zhang, we’ll be opening a new exhibit, enjoying light refreshments, and sharing how you can participate in this community-wide read! The Winter Read is a community-wide read and collaboration of The Community Library in Ketchum with the Hailey Public Library, Bellevue Public Library, and Stanley Community Library. Learn more at https://comlib.org/programs/winter-read-2025/

Preserving cherished recipes from family and friends is a meaningful way to keep traditions alive and to ensure associated memories remain vibrant. Join Cynthia Nims for a workshop focused on the value of these most beloved recipes. Cynthia has been writing recipes for cookbooks and magazines for many years. Inspiration for those recipes comes from countless sources, among them are recipes that had a beginning in her mom’s kitchen. She’ll talk about the treasure that she considers her mother’s falling-apart recipe folder to be. And she’ll share examples of how recipes that may seem a bit dated can find a place in your kitchen today. Bring along a cherished family recipe or two to share with the group, discuss, and begin preserving through story. There will be time for an informal exercise to help capture the tales of these recipes. Register at www.comlib.org. Cynthia Nims is a Seattle-based author and consultant. Her most recent cookbook, “Shellfish,” was released in early 2022. Previous books include “Oysters and Salty Snacks.” Cynthia has served as the food editor of Seattle magazine, editor of “Simply Seafood” magazine and has contributed to Alaska Airlines Beyond, Cooking Light, and Coastal Living, among others. She publishes a …

Writers-in-Residence at the Hemingway House, Greer Rising and Eileen Martin will discuss private letters from U.S. Army General Buck Lanham to Greer’s family, and what they tell us about Ernest Hemingway and his art. Lanham and Hemingway sealed their friendship on World War II battlefields and remained friends until Hemingway’s death in 1961. The personal collection illuminates Lanham’s life and helps decipher coded references that he and Hemingway shared. The Lanhams and the Risings corresponded for much of the 20th century, and Hemingway and Lanham wrote each other at least twice a month for 17 years – hundreds of letters. The presentation will focus on Hemingway and Lanham as intellectual equals, with themes of love, war and literature underpinning their friendship. Lanham’s influence on Hemingway’s writing is stronger than previously known: the writer modeled the protagonist in his novel Across the River and Into the Trees after Lanham’s life, and borrowed from Lanham’s volatile marriage for his novel The Garden of Eden, published in 1986. Two of Hemingway’s posthumously-published short stories mention Buck Lanham and relate battlefield anecdotes from time with Lanham’s unit. Greer and Eileen also discovered an unpublished Hemingway war poem, written when the two men were together, …