Wallace and The Silver Valley...Idaho (off the beaten path)

On page 606 of our book..."1000 Places To See Before You Die In USA and Canada" is Wallace, Idaho and the Silver Valley. We have traveled past this small town several times and only looked over the interstate at the town AND slowed down, not wanting to become a victim of the Shoshone County Sheriff's department (they like to set speed traps). It is a small, historic mining town of approximately 975 people at this present day. The town is less than 20 miles west of Lookout Pass, was the last stop light-from coast to coast-along I90 until the 1980's. Wallace is one of few towns listed in its entirety in the National Historic Register. There are whole blocks that have remained intact for a century or longer! I wanted to stop at the Bordello Museum, but I guess it really isn't appropriate to take 2 pre-teens to see...from the information that I read, they still have things left behind "in a hurry". Multiple "single" shoes, socks and even pants. It was still running until about 1988 when it finally had it's doors closed but is now reopened as a museum. This valley has been the scene of intensive industrial mining and for many years ranked first in the world for annual production of silver, even today, the top four silver mines in the U.S are located in this valley. Also in this valley is Kellogg, Idaho-where the worlds longest gondola is located (see previous blog!)
Here are just a few pictures from our little weekend excursion. By the way...it was a learning experience for the kids and they didn't realize it until our tour guide said something to them...boy did I get the looks!
This park is located on the edge of Wallace

Sculpture of a mining family

In 1972, a fire broke out and several miners died from carbon monoxide. Between Kellogg and Wallace~there is a memorial set up for the miners. I believe there were 91 miners who died.

This memorial is right off the interstate. It doesn't look very big when looking over the road, but it is very huge. The light on the hard hat is always on.

There were multiple little headstones in memory of the miners who lost their lives. It was very tearful to see this.

You can see how big it is compared to Mike and Caite

Mike, Josh and Caite as we wait to go into the Sierra Mine

Old mining rail car

These little "rodents" were making friends. Some are chipmunks~~~~

Check out the cheeks on this guy!

This is the trolley that brought us up to the mine

We all had to wear a hard hat going into the mine. Mike thought I was going to get claustrophobic going it...BUT I was fine-because I could move my hands up and down and sideways...and I know there was an end to the mine!

There were 25 steps walking up to the entrance of the mine. There was 2 other families who did this tour with us...the little kids were under the age of 4.

The lights are markings of where they put explosive material to blast
This is Lenny our guide-he worked the mines for over 30 years
Lenny was educating Josh and Caite. He told them without things that were "mined" they would not have skateboards, Nintendo, TV's and so on....they couldn't believe it! (They still remember it AND that they learned something!)
Lenny said he was a Norwegian with a hard head, he was quite knowledgeable and a funny fellow.
Looking for more rodents!
Inside the mine
All the hard hats outside the mine entrance

Here is another mine that is located right off of I 90. We were going to go tour it, but the kids were getting restless.

Downtown Wallace

Josh and Caite

The "Center of the Universe" is supposedly where Caite is standing!
This is the underside of I-90
We had to go 4 X 4'ing north of Kellogg, Idaho.

View right from my window-dang tree-got in the way!

We had a wonderful time and all four of us learned something new. Now...off to our next adventure!