Big hitch to be pulled by historic jerk line
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
For the first time in recent Wagon Days history, an
authentic jerk line and muleskinner will haul ore wagons through downtown
Ketchum during the event’s Big Hitch Parade.
Wagon Days is the valley’s biggest historic celebration.
On Labor Day, residents and visitors will celebrate the valley’s mining
heritage during the annual event.
In recent years, a team of Percheron draft horses pulled
six huge ore wagons—each weighing three tons—down Sun Valley Road and
turned right onto Main Street. It’s always been a spectacular sight.
This year the spectacular sight will have a more historic
flare.
A jerk line of fourteen mules controlled by a driver who
sits on the left horse nearest the wagons will pull the massive ore wagons
through Ketchum’s streets.
Bobby Tanner from Bishop, Calif., will be the driver,
historically called a mule skinner.
"The exciting addition will not only provide a much
more authentic Big Hitch, but also create a viewer’s spectacle even more
impressive than before," said Ross Copperman, Sun Valley-Ketchum
Chamber of Commerce marketing coordinator. "The community looks
forward to the authentic jerk line and the massive Lewis Big Hitch gracing
our streets as it has in years past."
In historic Ketchum, wagon trains such as those from
Ketchum entrepreneur Horace Lewis’ Ketchum Fast Freight Line kept goods
moving—from pick axes to pianos to cloth and whisky--everything miners
might need (or want) in the backcountry. They’d return with ores carved
from Idaho’s mountains.
Trail Creek Road, a modern-day pathway in the gap between
the Pioneer and Boulder mountains, served as a valuable link in the local
economy in the 1880s. Build by Lewis for his wagon train operation, the
original Trail Creek Road was steep and dangerous, inclining at 12
percent. The modern-day road climbs at a 7 percent grade.
Travel over twisty mountain roads with teams of 14 to 20
mules was quite a challenge, particularly when turning corners.
The jerk line mule team freight outfit, as it was called,
is now nearly 100 years in the past, and the complicated process of
turning a corner with one of the outfits is a dying art.
The challenge was (and is) to maintain tension in the
chain connecting all the mules as they turn a corner.
To see how it’s done, don’t miss the Big Hitch Parade
on Labor Day weekend.
