By ISAIAH FRIZZELL
Rebecca Cox, the Blaine County Historical Museum’s director, has lived in the Wood River Valley nearly her entire life.
“My parents were working for the Forest Service, and they moved here when I was six months old,” Cox said. “We lived way out in Muldoon Canyon in a Forest Service guard station. I learned to walk out there, and it was idyllic.”
Nowadays, she oversees the treasure trove of well-kept objects and defining stories that describe where we are and how we got here at the Blaine County Historical Museum on Main Street in Hailey. It takes a special type of person, fascinated by history and graced with joy, who recognizes the value of shared nostalgia. Her work with the museum began as a volunteer.
“I started working with the collections and talking with the former director,” Cox said. “About a year later, Joan Davies invited me to join the board. As the vice-president, she invited me to a board meeting, and I was so involved that they voted me in as a board member. I just got really excited about the potential of the place. I realized that this has been a treasure box here in the community, but a treasure box that wasn’t fully opened.”
Becoming the director evolved organically. “It just seemed like something I wanted to pour my heart into. I became the director in 2019, and we’ve been steadily doing stepping-stones of growth.”
Cox is also a talented pianist and vocalist who performs in the valley at farmers’ markets and local gigs. She got her start in Germany playing on Air Force bases. “That’s how my husband and I met, while in Germany,” she said. “He’s a guitar player. So, I brought him back here, and we got married, 20 years ago now.”
They were married at the old Carnation Mansion just south of Bellevue.
“We were such wandering souls,” Cox recalled. “But then I thought, this is where we’re going to raise our kids. It kind of shifted something in me, and I looked at my community differently. But it was my husband who encouraged me to volunteer at the museum. I’d just had my third child, and as I do music, you know, we’d been doing things around the valley. But I hadn’t really found my true connection with the community.”
Cox can often be found at the museum even during off-hours, finding new ways t bring delight to the community with event nights including food, music, and special guided tours.
A gorgeous, working, antique cash register sits at the front of the museum and Cox loves to demonstrate how it works.
“We love to have kids pretend that they’re miners,” she said. “And we show them these receipts of actual miners coming into a store. We’ll say, ‘How much do you think they spent?’”
To demonstrate, Cox punches in the numbers. The total displays with a beautiful, well-crafted sound.
“We’re really excited to be participating with the school district and other community partners during Hailey’s Days of the Old West,” Cox said. “This will be a very big program we’ll offer annually for the fourth graders. It’s an immersive history experience.”
Meet Rebecca Cox at the Blaine County Historical Museum.
Entirely free and open daily from Memorial Day through Labor Day Weekend.
11 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday and 1-5 p.m. on Sundays.