Hard Work Puts Wallace Back On Map

This town looks good.

Better, really, than it has a right to, considering the bloody fight for survival Wallace has waged for 15 years or more.

Once, Wallace was a place where you worked to get rich and visited to get wild.

A generation ago, 5,000 men worked as hard rock miners under this steep and storied ground.

When silver prices peaked at $50 an ounce in the early 1980s, a miner could earn $350 a day. At night, he could spend it all in the boisterous bars and bordellos.

Today, Wallace talks about bargains in real estate and its dream of becoming the mountain biking and snowmobiling capital of the world.

Fewer than 800 miners still go underground in the valley. Plenty of vacation housing stock is available. A two-bedroom fixer-upper with a nice view of the mountains is yours for $35,000.

The biggest thrill comes from knowing you can pilot your snow machine through town and be welcome.

“We’re trying to identify with emerging recreation markets,” explained Tom Magnuson, a leader of the reinvented Wallace that bills itself as Silver Country. “We had whorehouses, a burned-out mining industry and a bad reputation. At least we had some data to start with and knew where we had to do some work.”

And work they have.

The brothels went dark, but their remnants became the Oasis Bordello Museum.

The mining flotsam was turned over to the Environmental Protection Agency for a cleanup, which is scheduled to be complete by next year.

As lead levels in children’s blood have dropped to the lowest point in decades, the reputation of Wallace as a cleaned-up tourist and mining town has steadily risen.

The new Silver Valley still aspires to be the world’s biggest and world’s best at something, if only that something can be found.

A promising foundation for the 21st-century Silver Valley lies in the miles and miles of logging roads and abandoned railroad lines that crisscross the region.

This winter, snowmobilers from around the nation will come to traverse 1,000 miles of trails. As Yellowstone Park puts more regulations on snowmobiling, the Silver Valley hopes it can build its reputation.

In summer, the pitch is something else: 1,000 miles of trails and they are all downhill.

They can’t be, really.

But Wallace and Kellogg are making it seem real by promoting shuttle services that take bikers to the upper end of the long Milwaukee Road rail line over Lookout Pass. From there, it’s a gentle coast down through spectacular scenery, across elevated trestles and through dark tunnels.

Wallace offers a lesson to those places that must rethink their basic economic and lifestyle assumptions.

Look at what is realistic, consider what is historic, and find a way to stay unique in a world of cookie-cutter ideas about economic development.

“We’re going to have close to 10,000 bike trail visitors this year,” said Wallace First Security Bank Manager Bill Dire. “That’s 2,000 more than last year, and the numbers keep going up.”

The Silver Valley still has its challenges.

By next year the major portion of the EPA’s Superfund cleanup will be over.

The good news is that the Silver Valley can say as much.

The bad news is that the the cleanup itself generated 200 high-paying jobs that will soon be gone.

To continue the climb back from depression, the Silver Valley must catch the attention of small businesses and families willing to take a second look.

“This place has some advantages,” said Ken Schuerman, owner of the Super 8 Motel in Kellogg. “There’s not that much competition. You can afford to live here.”

He could have mentioned the great skiing and an interstate highway that gets people to Coeur d’Alene in half an hour.

And there is still mining after all these years.

Wallace and Kellogg produced the riches that built the mansions and fortunes of Spokane and Coeur d’Alene.

If silver prices would recover another $1 an ounce, some new fortunes would still be made underground.

Until then, it’s a place with the world’s biggest and best system of trails where you can get a good night’s sleep off the freeway and spend a day looking for a nice little house in a beautiful, historic region.

“Up here, the philosophy is that you should grow where you are planted,” Schuerman explained.

This is a town that cut the moaning and groaning and got to work.

Their example is a nice reminder to the rest of us.