Millie Wiggins and the West’s first coffee house

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By DICK DORWORTH
Express Staff Writer

Ketchum's original Congregational Church, built in 1883, became the Leadville Espresso House in 1959, the first coffeehouse of its kind in Idaho and a bastion for the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, various bohemians and for one New Year's Eve, at least, the Kennedy family. The building was located near the corner of Leadville Avenue and Sun Valley Road, before being moved this fall temporarily to Ketchum's park & ride lot. (Photos courtesy of Millie Wiggins)

The building that was Ketchum’s original Congregational Church (built in 1883) was moved in October from its location on Leadville Avenue to the park & ride lot on Saddle Road. It was known and mourned as the Louie’s Restaurant building, the place where the best medium-priced Italian food in town could be found. Louie’s had been in operation for more than two decades before it was sold for the value of the land, not the building which has enormous historical if not economic value.

So it’s no surprise that for most locals and Sun Valley guests it is the Louie’s Restaurant building. But for many of a certain age who lived and skied in Sun Valley in a certain time, the old Congregational Church is remembered simply as "Leadville."

I am of that age and lived in Sun Valley during that time, and, as with many others, Leadville is an important and warmly remembered part of my personal life experience, education and coming of age as a responsible member of the 1960s counter-culture.

It was, by decades, the first coffeehouse in the Wood River Valley. According to ex-owner Millie Wiggins, who now owns and operates Avventura women’s clothes on East Avenue, "Leadville was the first coffee house in Ketchum. It was the first coffeehouse in Idaho. Actually, except for the big cities within 30 miles of the Pacific, Leadville was the first coffeehouse in western America."

A story in the June 28, 1959, issue of the Idaho Statesman reads:

"The only espresso coffee house in Idaho will open this week on Leadville Avenue in Ketchum near the Sun Valley Road. It has been named the Leadville Espresso House in honor of the original name of the town (which the post office department kiboshed at the end of a year because there were already too many Leadvilles in the pioneer West) and is located in the tall, bell-topped, little building which was the first church in Ketchum (circa 1883)…The Leadville is patterned after the fashionable espresso coffee house that now exists in nearly all big cities in America and Europe…usually a comparatively small place with distinctive decor and intimate atmosphere.

"A visitor, viewing the picturesque place the Leadvillers have created with paint pot and elbow grease, might wonder why enterprising housewives and handyman husbands don’t dream up espresso coffee houses in every county seat in Idaho."

A local ad for the coffeehouse read, "Not for everyone." Left to right, patrons Pam Street, Rob Struthers, Mike Zeutell, Gordon Williams, Tisa Green, Bobby Marshall, Tish Sterling, Skipper "Fly" Dees, Herman Maricich, Connie Maricich and Margeaux Hemingway.

Forty years later there is a quaint innocence in those words for a town with at least six coffeehouses (more than one of them parts of a chain) with distinctive decor and intimate atmosphere. But Ketchum has never seen a business, a coffeehouse, a scene and a social statement quite like what occurred with the Leadville Espresso House during its life from 1959 to 1967. Leadville was begun by Herman and Connie Maricich, with the help of Dr. Don Soli, a Jerome physician, and John Lister, the Sun Valley music director at that time. Maricich was an ice skating instructor in Sun Valley. Millie Wiggins was a high school friend of Connie Maricich’s and moved to Ketchum from New York City to work at her old friend’s new business.

Soon after her arrival, Wiggins met Mike Solheim, part of a transplanted Chicago crowd in Ketchum that included Bert Bender and Dick Fitzgerald, who had played football with the Chicago Bears. Wiggins and Solheim quickly became partners in life and in Leadville, leasing the business from Maricich and the other owners within the year.

Leadville was Idaho’s only center for all that is meant by the designations "bohemian," "beatnik" and "counter-culture." Wiggins recalls, "Ketchum wasn’t quite ready for Leadville, and I think we offended some of the old time locals. I didn’t mean to offend anyone, but some people just didn’t know what to make of our basic black beatnik clothes and approach to life. Nobody even knew what espresso was."

At one point Wiggins put an ad in the paper using a line from Hermann Hesse’s novel "Steppenwolf" in which a sign outside Steppenwolf’s Magic Theater reads "Not for everyone." The message "not for everyone" was misconstrued by some, and Wiggins remembers "red-neck types" stopping her on the street and accusing her of being undemocratic and wanting to know why everyone couldn’t go to Leadville.

Wiggins eventually prevailed with the old-time locals, as recently shown when Wiggins was accompanied to a Ketchum City Council meeting by two 93- year-old matriarchs of the area, Mrs. Mary Brooks, former director of the U.S. Mint and mother of conservative sheep rancher/politician John Peavey, and Marge Heiss, whose family sold to Union Pacific Railroad the land that is now the city of Sun Valley.

They successfully argued for approval of the "Eat More Lamb" sign that, 40 years after Leadville began, graces the east side of the Starbucks Coffee House building. There is both irony and assimilation in Ketchum’s first beatnik of 40 years ago teaming with 93-year-old ranching matriarchs to support a reminder of traditional Idaho culture on the same building as Starbucks, the largest counter counter-culture chain coffee house in the world.

"My memoir will be based on what I wore and when. I'm obsessed with clothes," syas Millie Wiggins today. Wiggins, left, with Leadville owner Connie Maricich nearly 40 years ago.

As many who were around Ketchum in the 1960s recall, caffeine was not the only stimulant imbibed at the Leadville Espresso House. Aperitifs, liqueurs, beers, wines, brandy, vodka, rum and scotch were among the mind and attitude adjusters favored at Leadville. A Leadville menu includes Rhum Mocha Frosted; Black Russian; Grant’s Toddy (hot tea, Kentucky Gentlemen bourbon, lemon & a dash of nutmeg); Tea-Totaler (tea, rum & and a dash of lemon); Caffe Italiano (espresso, steamed milk, brandy, chocolate shavings); and Forty Winks (sanka, brandy & hot milk), all for a dollar except for Forty Winks which sold for 85 cents. Turkish pastries, Greek butter cookies and Scotch shortbread were also offered.

That it was a very different time and social (and economic) atmosphere from today is evidenced by Leadville’s hours of business: 8 p.m. until 2 a.m.; Sundays from 4 p.m. until midnight; open Saturday and Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m. during July and August; closed on Monday. The tolling of the bells in the old church steeple marked each opening time.

It was the cultural ambiance and events that set Leadville apart from the usual fare of Ketchum watering holes. The Wednesday night film series offered two showings a night of films of the kind not available in the Sun Valley Opera House, the only movie theater at the time: "Cyrano de Bergerac" with Jose Ferrar; "Orpheus" by Jean Cocteau; "Kon-Tiki;" "The Wild One" with Marlon Brando; "The Adulteress" with Simone Signoret; "Annapurna;" "The Naked Night" by Ingmar Bergman; "Nana" with Charles Boyer; and "My Little Chickadee" with W. C. Fields and Mae West were some of them. Wiggins says that "Annapurna," the story of the first ascent of an 8,000-meter peak by the French in 1950, was shown several times and always packed the house.

Wiggins and Solheim made friends with an aspiring young journalist named Hunter S. Thompson who visited Ketchum in the early ‘60s on assignment from the National Observer and who found and, of course, fit right in with the Leadville crowd. They promoted Thompson’s work to their friends years before any of his books had been published and he became the icon and founder of Gonzo journalism. Wiggins says today, "Hunter’s work was just the funniest writing around." Though some of Thompson’s books like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Curse of Lono are definitely not for everyone, they are very funny; and his Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail is political reporting at its best and most astute and humorous. Solheim, who now lives in Aspen, Thompson’s hometown, is still one of his best friends and confidants.

The first time the well known ski photographer Dick Barrymore showed his films in Ketchum he chose the Leadville.

Leadville hosted many costume parties where the most imaginative 1960s counter-culture fantasies were turned into fashion statements and, in some cases, creative excess.

Long time Ketchum resident and counselor Diane Crist remembers Leadville as the place where she learned to dance the twist.

The live music at Leadville was some of the finest folk/rock available in the West. Some of the best San Francisco bay area rock bands regularly performed, including Barry and the J Walkers and The Loading Zone.

Another popular duo was Pat and Victoria. But the most popular act at Leadville was Rosealie Sorrels, the well known folk singer/song writer/musician and story teller. Sorrels now lives in Boise and is still performing and telling stories. Sorrels’ grandfather was the Rev. Stringfellow, the Episcopalian minister in Hailey, and he often preached in the Congregational Church in Ketchum. Wiggins always introduced Sorrels as the granddaughter of the Rev. Stringfellow, both performing on the same stage two generations apart.

Wiggins also remembers New Year’s Eve 1964. The Kennedy family, vacationing in Sun Valley, was still in mourning after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and, rather than celebrate the New Year in public, they chose Leadville for a private party. She doesn’t have much to say about the party itself, but she recalls with a chuckle the crass maneuvering and jockeying for invitations by the star-struck and the socially pretentious. A few were so desperate they even tried to crash the Camelot-come-to-Leadville New Year’s Eve party.

Millie Wiggins has a lot of memories of the Leadville Espresso House. Those memories will be included in a memoir she is just beginning to write on her new and first computer, given to her by Ketchum’s Nick Cox, a Leadville regular and the original owner of the Pioneer.

"My memoir will be based on what I wore and when. I’m obsessed with clothes," says the owner of Avventura.

At least in the era of the Leadville Espresso House she wore basic beatnik black unless, of course, there was a costume party.