Kellogg mine whistle returns in new role

KELLOGG – A familiar sound will return to the city of Kellogg on Saturday when Silver Mountain reactivates the big whistle once used to signal shift change at the Bunker Hill Mine and Smelter complex.

The whistle has been mounted to the roof of Silver Mountain’s gondola base. It will blow at 5 p.m. Saturday for the opening of Noah’s Canteen, a new restaurant at the base. Plans are to sound the whistle daily at noon and 4 p.m.

“It’s amazing how nostalgic people are about the whistle,” said Patrick Johnson, Silver Mountain’s construction manager.

When the whistle would blow, women knew it was time to start dinner. Kids knew their fathers would soon be home from work. At its peak, the Bunker Hill Mine employed more than 2,000 workers. The whistle, used there for decades, fell silent after the mine closed in 1981. The mine was reopened briefly, from 1988 to 1991, but has not operated since.

“It really was the heartbeat of the valley,” Johnson said of the old whistle. “You knew what ran the valley; it was the mines.”

Silver Mountain is drawing on Shoshone County’s mining history for its resort condo development. When the idea of using a shift whistle arose, Johnson approached Bunker Hill’s current owner and mine manager, Bob Hopper. Since the whistle is such a valuable artifact, Hopper is letting Silver Mountain use it on a permanent loan basis.

“It is symbolic of so much of what was basic industrial America,” Hopper said. “The heartbeat of the town was the town whistle. Without anybody really noticing, they were all gone.”

Pressing the whistle back into service restores a bit of the not-so-distant past, he said. “It’s absolutely marvelous they’re doing it.”

The piercing whistle lasts five seconds. Johnson doesn’t know how loud it is. When Silver Mountain tried to measure the volume with a device from the Kellogg Police Department, the decibel level exceeded the device’s ability to measure the sound.

“It will rattle the snow right off the roof,” predicted Gretta Bailey, Silver Mountain’s event coordinator.

Silver Mountain has been tinkering with and testing the whistle to make sure it complies with the city’s noise ordinance.

“We’re trying to tone it down,” Johnson said.

At the Bunker Hill Mine, a 1,000-gallon tank provided the compressed air that operated the whistle. It blew three times a day – 7 a.m., noon and 4 p.m., Hopper said.

“It was heard far and wide through the valley,” he said.

Silver Mountain is using a smaller tank and less air pressure, and it will gauge the community’s reaction and make adjustments to the volume, Johnson said.

Still, it will be loud, Hopper said.

“Oh yeah, you’re going to hear it.”