Let’s Save Stacks As A Tourist Draw Pro-Stacks A Reminder Of A Rich History Of Ambitions And Excesses

Driving back from Yellowstone or Glacier national parks, many Pacific Northwest travelers pass through North Idaho’s Silver Valley.

As the highway goes through Kellogg, back-seat voices inevitably ask, “What are those big towers?”

The towers, or stacks, are part of the Inland Northwest’s mining history and heritage.

Built for the operation of the huge Bunker Hill mine and smelter, the smokestacks vented fumes and gases above the Silver Valley’s homes and workers.

Now, with Bunker Hill closed and environmental cleanup under way, Idaho officials are debating the future of the four stacks.

Here’s a vote for letting them stand.

The tall towers can be - and should be - monuments to man’s ambitions and excesses in the Silver Valley.

Bunker Hill mining and smelting operations generated much of the early wealth of the region. The same activities also left a damaging environmental legacy.

Leaving the stacks would allow future generations to consider the history and the trade-offs of the Silver Valley’s mining economy.

The notion raised by some Silver Valley residents that knocking the stacks down somehow would erase the bad memories of mining is naive and wrongheaded.

First of all, mining is an essential activity. And mining - not discount shops, resort hotels or ski slopes - established the economic and community life of North Idaho and the region.

And perhaps more important to the future, recalling this history and this ongoing economic force is valuable as a point of reference for understanding the region.

Rather than knocking down the stacks, Silver Valley residents should pursue the idea of a mining museum to be established near the stacks and the new ski developments. At as much as 715 feet high, the stacks easily are the most visible and identifiable architectural landmarks of the Silver Valley.

Indeed, the Silver Valley might well want to incorporate the stacks into a distinctive advertising and marketing campaign - the Stacks Motel, the Bunker Hill Grill, etc.

Every city has monuments to its past that, once gone, are missed.

Rather than razing the past, Kellogg should find a way to honor the tall smokestacks as an integral part of the city’s future.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Let’s blast stacks to smithereens

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = EDITORIAL, COLUMN - From both sides