Wallace Idaho Today

The high price of silver has revived an Idaho mining community, where miners are, once again, the backbone of the local economy.

WALLACE, Idaho — The strangest thing happened here in the Silver Valley as it began the transformation from historic mining camp to yet another Western confection of ski slopes and condos for newcomers with money. The real estate market slowed, and the price of silver soared.

Two condominium projects under construction in Kellogg, just west of Wallace, are stalled, while once-struggling or -shuttered mines like Lucky Friday, Galena and the historic Sunshine Mine have been revived and are expanding into the hillsides.

Though real estate developers continue to have faith in the area for the long term, speculators who maneuver for land these days may well want to build underground. Miners are feeling less like fading local color and more like the backbone of the local economy.

“This is the Silver Valley, not the Tourism Valley,” Greg Riley, a miner who takes an elevator 5,900 feet down into the earth each workday, said between sips of beer at the Metals Bar and Lounge. “I’ve actually had people right here in this bar say to me, ‘Oh, they still mine here?’ ”

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Wallace is starting to get noticed on the internet as a place where people should consider buying a second home.

According to a May 30, 2003, article at CBS.MarketWatch.com, Wallace is ranked 24 in a list of the top 30 places in the nation where prospective second-home purchasers can find the best value for their money. Andrew Schiller, a Ph.D. in geography and operator of neighborhoodscout.com, has compiled a database that includes census, crime and other statistics, and allows prospective homebuyers to plug in search criteria to research communities nationwide.

"Focusing on mountain and coastal areas, Schiller looked for places that were not congested, had some residents with a college-level education, a mix of rentals and owner-occupied houses, good public schools, low levels of crime, and a good price point relative to other houses in the area. ... Also on the list is Wallace, Idaho, 'framed in by national forest lands,' Schiller said. 'It had all of these characteristics pegged terrifically and it had a median house value of $63,000.'"

"In 1890, Wallace -- tucked away in a valley in Idaho's Panhandle -- was the third largest town in Idaho. But the Great Fire of 1910 wiped out a third of it. The good news is that townsfolk rebuilt with brick and stone -- lovely buildings that remain today. In a region of Idaho that has suffered greatly from economic slowdowns in the timber and mining industries, Wallace kind of hops. It may be the closest thing Idaho has to an intact, compact metropolitan grid where people actually want to be. A bit of trivia: Wallace gets more rainfall than any town in Idaho; the volcano drama, Dante's Peak, was filmed there, and old Interstate 90, which ran through town before it was rerouted, had the only highway stoplight between Seattle and Boston."