Town Should Be A Name-Dropper
“Smelterville” rolls off the tongue like a rusty ball bearing, conjuring up images of smokestacks, toxicity and grimy buildings.
The name is a chamber of commerce nightmare.
Holiday Inns of America and Pizza Hut have turned down potential sites in the Silver Valley town because they don’t locate in smelter towns.
Oddly, though, there are no smelters in Smelterville. And the two large ones nearby - in the unincorporated area and in Kellogg - will be demolished May 26. All that will remain is an incongruous name that once heralded the Industrial Revolution but now epitomizes pollution.
Now, for the third time in 15 years, a grass-roots movement is trying to change Smelterville’s name. Council members in the town of 464 people should heed the effort and place the matter on the November ballot for a referendum vote.
How important is a name? Name-change proponent J.C. Marshall answers that question with a question: “Where would you rather be: Sun Valley, Palm Springs, Coeur d’Alene - or Smelterville?” This isn’t a case of trying to polish a “horse apple.”
Although overshadowed by the historic mining towns of Wallace, Kellogg and even tiny Murray, Smelterville has much to offer in the narrow Silver Valley floor. It has some of the largest areas of flat land in the valley, an airport and land set aside for an industrial park. Smelterville is poised for growth.
Marshall, a Smelterville businessman, almost got run out of town when he tried to change the town’s name once before. Smelterville chauvinists cite tradition and history as reasons for their stand (most of them probably don’t want to go through the hassle of changing their stationery either). Said one: “It’s been that way for umpteen years.”
But the town’s name, worn with pride in smoky 1929 when a dozen or so residents picked it, has become a liability, a reminder of the tragic lead contamination the Silver Valley now would prefer to clean up and forget.
Marshall claims that two-thirds of the 78 residents who returned a survey about the town name want a change. He has provided solid alternatives, too - Bitterroot (the town is in the foothills of the Bitterroots), Elk Ridge and South Fork.
What’s in a name? Johnny Cash once sang about “A Boy Named Sue” who grew up mean and tough defending himself from the name given him by his father. In the end, after a fight nearly to the death with his estranged dad, he thanked him for the name and said he would think of naming his own son “Bill or George, … anything but Sue.”
Or Smelterville.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board