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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

A new chapter


Monica and JB Howick, owners of a small publishing company, WindRiver Publishing, are fixing up and moving into the old East Shoshone Medical Center in Silverton, Idaho.
 (Kathy Plonka / The Spokesman-Review)

SILVERTON, Idaho – When JB and Monica Howick decided to relocate their small publishing company from Utah, they had a few distinct needs.

Easy access to Interstate 90 and warehouse space were both musts. So was a certain mystique. “There’s a romanticism in publishing that people both like and expect to see,” said JB Howick, president of WindRiver Publishing.

The Howicks ended up in the most unlikely of places: an abandoned hospital in Silverton, Idaho. They’re fixing up the 26,000-square foot East Shoshone Medical Center, with plans to move in by the end of the year.

WindRiver Publishing bought the old hospital from Shoshone County, which had acquired it through back taxes. In lieu of a cash sale, the couple agreed to put a new roof on the building, and make extensive repairs. Howick estimated the cost at $500,000.

“It was a real find,” he said of the building, located in a historic mining district, several blocks from I-90. “We were looking for a nice place to live, as well as an easy place to drop the business. …We wanted forests, mountains and trees.”

Howick and his wife started WindRiver Publishing two years ago. The company focuses on books for the family market, including religious titles. “Waldo Chicken Wakes the Dead,” one of WindRiver’s best sellers, was named the 2004 Best Mystery Fiction from the American Library Association.

The hospital was an unpromising candidate when the Howicks first saw it. The structure, built in 1967, had been vacant for several years. Water poured through a leaky roof; mold was growing in the insulation, and mildewed records were strewn across the floor. Creditors for the bankrupt hospital district had stripped the place bare.

“It was a huge liability for the county,” said Vince Rinaldi, executive director of the Silver Valley Economic Development Corp. “We were so close to the point where we could have a cave-in in the roof system. You could stand in the operating room and take a shower.”

But the couple saw the building’s potential. The location was ideal. WindRiver contracts out its printing and national distribution to companies in Ann Arbor, Mich., a straight shot on I-90.

The structure’s cinderblock walls were also a plus. Once the insulation and old records were pulled out, the mold problem disappeared. The cinderblocks also act as natural firewalls.

“This building was designed not to burn” – a necessity for a company that will store thousands of pallets of books, Howick said.

The element of mystique was also present. Howick can imagine readers turning a book over in their hands, appreciating that it came from a small publisher in Silverton, Idaho.

Shoshone County will benefit from the arrangement with WindRiver as well, said Jon Cantamessa, a county commissioner. The old hospital was one of many buildings that reverted to the county ownership after downturns in the region’s mining economy. As the local real estate market strengthens, Shoshone County is gradually finding new owners for the buildings, and getting them back on the tax rolls, he said.

WindRiver publishes eight to 10 titles annually, a figure the Howicks eventually hope to ramp up to 24 per year. Upcoming releases include a wedding guide for full-figured women, and collection of radio sermons delivered by a Methodist minister during the Depression years.

“Getting manuscripts is easy,” Howick said. Getting good ones is harder. The company receives 50 to 500 manuscripts from hopeful authors every month. Sifting through the pile is relatively easy.

“Most people, regrettably, don’t know how to write,” Howick said.