News Release
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March 29, 2006
Documentary on Idaho Adventurer Limbert to be Shown April 5 at BSU, April 6 at Ada County Library
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From top to bottom:
Finger of Fate, In the Craters, and In the Mountains |
Among the Craters of the Moon, a documentary about Idaho adventurer Robert Limbert and produced by Steve Wursta, will be shown at 7 p.m. April 5 in the Barnwell Room of the Student Union at Boise State University and at 7 p.m. April 6 at the Ada Community Library, 10664 W. Victory Road. The BSU showing is sponsored by the university’s Student Programs Board. A discussion session will be held after each showing.
After more than a year of research and filming, documentary filmmaker Wursta produced Among the Craters of the Moon, the Life and Adventures of Robert W. Limbert. More than 400 of Limbert’s never-before-seen photographs, motion pictures and documents have been assembled into a one-hour film detailing his adventures and the impact he made on the state of Idaho.
Limbert is best known in Idaho for building the historic Redfish Lodge in the Sawtooth Mountains and his 17-day trek across the unmapped lava flows of central Idaho in 1920 that led to the creation of Craters of the Moon National Monument in 1924. But Limbert lived a much more adventurous life then was previously known.
After his Craters of the Moon fame, Limbert embarked on a series of explorations in Idaho on his 1919 Excelsior motorcycle. He discovered ancient petroglyphs including Map Rock, an enormous boulder that Limbert believed displayed a detailed map of the Snake River and its tributaries flowing into the Columbia River. He was the first to navigate the entire length of the Bruneau River from the mountains of Nevada to the Snake River.
The stories and photographs of his discoveries were published in National Geographic Magazine and in major publications throughout the United States. Convinced that tourism was important to the future of Idaho’s economy, Limbert formed Sawtooth Tours Inc. in 1926 with Chicago cheese magnate J.L Kraft as a key investor. He spent months exploring the Sawtooth Mountains searching for the perfect place to build a lodge. In
1927 Limbert settled on pristine Redfish Lake and began building Redfish Lodge on its shores that following summer.
Limbert was an excellent marksman. He traveled the country billed as the famous Idaho explorer and trick shot artist on behalf of the conservationist Izaak Walton. He relished showing his photographs and movies promoting the beauty of Idaho to raise money for local chapters of the Izaak Walton League and developing clients for Redfish Lodge. In 1933, at the age of 48, Limbert died of a heart attack at the height of career. Soon after, he and his accomplishments drifted into obscurity.
In 1983, Craters of the Moon National Monument officials began an investigation into the site’s history and that of Limbert. The researchers discovered Limbert’s daughter, Margaret Lawrence, was still living in Boise and had thousands of her father’s unpublished photographs and documents. The collection was eventually donated to Craters of the Moon National Monument and archived at the Boise State University Albertsons Library. In honor of Limbert’s contributions to the Monument, the visitors center at Craters of the Moon was renamed for him in 1990.
In 2004, Wursta began conducting research on Limbert for a short film on his life. After filming an interview with Lawrence, she offered five additional boxes of her father’s original documents. After the interview she remembered that there were some things in an old family Bible. While thumbing through the Bible, which hadn’t been opened in years, out came Limbert’s wedding certificate, several wedding photos and a postcard that he wrote his wife two days before he died, said Wursta.
This new information filled in many missing aspects of Limbert’s amazing life and it greatly expanded the scope of the film. Wursta donated the new documents to the Albertsons Library to be housed with the rest of its Limbert documents. Lawrence, Limbert’s only living child, lives in Boise and at age 89 continues to work at the Hollywood Market on the city’s North End.
Wursta spent many years in Washington, D.C., as a White House photographer and photo editor for United Press International and the Knight-Ridder News Service. In 1997 he co-authored the photography book Washington, City on a Hill with Washington Post writer Bob Levey.
Preview copies of the film are available upon request. Contact: Steve Wursta, Arctic Circle Productions, (541) 318-6281 or swursta@arcticproductions.com. Downloadable photos from Limberts’s collection are available at http://news.boisestate.edu.
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Contact: Alan Virta, Albertsons Library Special Collections, (208) 426-3958, avirta@boisestate.edu
Media Contact: Bob Evancho, University Communications, (208) 426-1643, bevanch@boisestate.edu
Boise State University is the largest institution of higher education in Idaho with about 18,600 students and 2,200 faculty and staff. More than 190 undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and technical degrees are offered within eight colleges. A metropolitan university located in the capital city, Boise State is committed to life-enhancing research, teaching excellence.
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Last reviewed on Wednesday, January 03, 2007