Spotlight on the Silver Valley
The Silver Valley, one of the first frontiers of the Pacific Northwest, is a mountainous community located along Interstate 90 in northern Idaho’s Shoshone County. The county was established in 1864, named for the Native American Shoshone tribe.
While silver made the area famous, it was the gold rush that brought miners to the area in droves. Gold was discovered in the streams and rivers running through the Silver Valley shortly after the end of the Civil war. As the claims ran out, miners discovered silver, lead, and zinc in the outcroppings from the heavily forested hillsides. Miners pursued those veins and today many have reached as far as 7,000 feet below the surface.
The Silver Valley is one of the richest silver mining regions in the world, with more than 1.1 billion ounces extracted in just over 120 years.
Today the Silver Valley still has active mines including Atlas, Bunker Hill, Coeur d’Alene, Hecla, Kimberly Gold, New Jersey, Shoshone Silver, Sterling and U.S. Silver.
New Jersey Mining Company, an Idaho corporation, explores for gold, silver and base metal deposits in the Coeur d’Alene Mining District, while concurrently mining and processing higher grade resources at its New Jersey mill facility near Kellogg, Idaho.
Synergistic businesses have found a home in the Silver Valley revolving around the mining industry. Spunstrand Inc. manufactures fiberglass air ducting. Ducting for underground HVAC is their specialty. Today Spunstrand Inc. furnishes miles of underslab HVAC duct systems, above ground industrial and municipal duct systems and various special applications. Installations are in every state and foreign countries. Kirk Nelson, President of Spunstrand encourages businesses to look to the Silver Valley for relocation because of the ease of transportation accessibility and low freight costs. Click here to see why Spunstrand has been successful in the Silver Valley for 50 years.
Kellogg
Kellogg, the largest town in the Silver Valley, is just 11 miles west of Wallace on Interstate 90.
Kellogg, today with a population of 2,395, is named after a prospector named Noah Kellogg. Legend has it that his donkey wandered off and Kellogg found the animal at a large outcropping of lead ore, which became the site of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mines in 1885.
Since many mines have closed, Kellogg is experiencing a renaissance as a tourist destination. New condos, hotels, restaurants, shops, a water park and a new golf course have sprung up at the base of the Silver Mountain Gondola. Kellogg has been featured in the New York Times travel section as an up and coming ski resort.
Silver Mountain Resort in Kellogg is located right off I-90, and is an easily accessible four-season resort destination. The resort offers 1,600 acres and 73 trails of varying terrain, and more than 300 inches of snow annually. Silver Mountain has over 2,200 vertical feet of the region’s finest skiing and snowboarding.
Silver Mountain recently opened a new indoor water park, Silver Rapids. It is always an ideal 84 degrees in the water park which includes a perfect wave powerful enough for boogie boarding and surfing, a lazy river, tube slides, Pollywog Pond and the Prospector Plunge.
To hear more about Silver Mountain Resort, click here to hear from Karey Scholey, Director of Development.
As Kellogg emerges as a resort community, public services have kept pace. Shoshone Medical Center opened in 2004 and is a 25-bed, community owned critical access hospital offering emergency and in patient care, general and orthopedic surgery and a full complement of outpatient services.
Shoshone Medical Center CEO Mike Pruitt moved to Kellogg from Texas for the more active lifestyle the region offers. Listen to Mike talk about Idaho.