Wallace is not a ghost town. After all, the traffic of an elevated Interstate 90 runs above it. But Wallace, a remarkable remnant of an enormous mining boom, features an outstanding 1890s historic downtown district and belongs in this book the way Colorado’s Central City does.
Mineral riches were discovered in the Coeur d’Alene Mining District in 1883, when prospector Andrew Pritchard found gold near what is now Murray, north of Wallace. A year later, gold was found much closer to Wallace at the Tiger and Poorman claims near Burke (see following entry, pages 224-225). But silver, not gold, was to provide the great riches of the Coeur d’Alene District, aptly known as the Silver Capital of the World. Between 1884 and 1968, the district produced 47 percent of the United States’ silver, 30 percent of its lead, and 12 percent of its zinc. Mining continues to this day, with a yield of about forty million dollars annually.
The Northern Pacific Railroad Depot, built in 1902, is the logical place to begin your tour of downtown Wallace, Idaho.
In 1883, a self-titled Colonel Wallace staked a claim he called the Oreornogo, as in, one assumes, “ore or no go.” It was a go: That claim became known as the Hecla, a huge producer. A year later, he purchased eighty acres of cedar trees and swamp, built a cabin on it, and called the modest spot Placer Center. His wife, Lucy, arrived the following year, and when the town of fourteen people applied for a post office, it was in the name of Wallace, with Lucy Wallace the first postmistress.
By 1886, Wallace had become a prosperous town of five hundred people surrounded by mining claims. A school for fifteen students opened that year, and a narrow gauge railroad arrived a year later. The silver rush attracted miners from Canada, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Finland, and Norway.
In 1890, a fire decimated Wallace’s wooden downtown, but residents rebuilt immediately, this time—with one exception—using brick. It is those buildings that draw tourists to Wallace today.
Three years later, Wallace had to fight a different kind of disaster. The Silver Crash of 1893 crippled its economy, but, unlike many Western silver towns, Wallace survived, in part because of the enormous quantity of silver that was being produced.
The wisdom of the townspeople to rebuild with brick became evident in 1910, when a huge forest fire burned more than three million acres of northern Idaho and western Montana. Only the east end of Wallace was damaged. The fire, known as the Big Blowup, so threatened Wallace that women and children were evacuated by train to Missoula.
The most recent threat to Wallace’s marvelous downtown came in the name of “progress.” Wallace stands in a narrow canyon, and when the federal government routed Interstate 90 from Boston to Seattle, Wallace was directly in its path.
I remember driving from Seattle to Denver in 1991. My daughter and I were speeding along the interstate when something surreal happened. Signs slowed us down, routed us into a delightful downtown, and we came to a stop at a traffic light. After the light, we rejoined the highway and went on our way. Wallace was the last piece of the interstate puzzle, and the light at Bank and Seventh streets was the final stoplight on the entire interstate system. At that time, Wallace wags gave these directions: “If you want to come here, drive all the interstates until you come to a traffic light. When you do, you’re in Wallace.”
The blinking yellow traffic light on historic Bank Street in Wallace replaced the last true stoplight in the entire United States interstate highway system.
The stationmaster’s office inside the depot in Wallace features, from left, the stationmaster’s hat, a dark red check writer, and a Western Electric Company candlestick phone, with a patent date of 1904.
The town was saved because forward-thinking citizens managed to have the downtown district placed on the National Register of Historic Places before Interstate 90 neared Wallace. As a result, one part of the federal government was protecting a community that another part wanted to destroy. Interstate 90 would have to avoid Wallace by going above it, not through it.
WALKING AND DRIVING AROUND WALLACE, IDAHO
The place to begin your tour of Wallace is the handsome 1902 Northern Pacific Railway Depot, located where Pine Street ends at Sixth Street. When the interstate came to Wallace, the depot was moved two hundred feet south for giant highway support columns. Inside the depot, now a museum, you can obtain a visitors’ guide that will greatly increase your enjoyment of the town.
With your tour guide in hand, walk, rather than drive, around town. Many of the best buildings are on Bank Street, including the 1890 Rossi Insurance Building on the southeast corner of Bank and Sixth streets, which features a pressed metal turret that rises above the diagonal front entrance. That last traffic signal on the interstate system, now merely blinking yellow, is a block east of the Rossi building at Seventh Street.
Wallace’s Nine Mile Cemetery, north of town, features a convenient series of roads for exploring this lovely, large cemetery.
In the northwest corner of downtown, at Fifth and River streets, stands an American classic, the Wallace Carnegie Library, built in 1910 and 1911, one of only four operational Carnegie libraries remaining in Idaho.
West of the business district is a residential area that features numerous Victorian homes. Cedar Street, one block north of Bank, has a dozen houses well worth viewing.
One of Wallace’s most outstanding attractions is not mentioned at all in the visitors’ guide: the 1885 Nine Mile Cemetery. From the former railroad depot, take Sixth Street north under the interstate and follow Sixth out of town, where it becomes Ninemile Creek Road. Where the one-mile marker appears on your right, look left for the entrance to the graveyard.
The Sierra Silver Mine
The Sierra Silver Mine should more accurately be named the Sierra Would-Be Silver Mine, since, as our guide ruefully pointed out, no paying ore was ever discovered there. That was a rather disappointing start for a tour, but things picked up as the guide took us inside and showed us how miners bored holes, set charges, retrieved the ore, and sent it out of the mine. During the tour, three pieces of working machinery were activated using air pressure, and we certainly became aware of what the din inside a mine could be.
The tour took eighty minutes, including a tram ride from downtown Wallace. I felt that young children might become restless inside the mine, as we often stood in one spot, then another. I would not recommend the tour for those who are unsteady on their feet, as the terrain is uneven and occasionally wet.
Overall, the Sierra Silver Mine is worth touring, but it does not compare to Colorado’s Old Hundred Mine (see page 105) near Silverton or the Mollie Kathleen (see page 66) north of Cripple Creek.
The pressed metal turret on the 1892 Rossi Insurance Building in Wallace is actually an architectural imitation of a turret across the street to the west.
The Nine Mile Cemetery stands among pines along steep slopes. Narrow roads crisscross it, so you can survey it easily. It has hundreds of old markers partitioned into sections such as the Miners’ Union, the Veterans, the Odd Fellows, the Eagles, the Grand Mound, the Forest Home, and the Catholic. The latter section, the farthest south, contains a monument to commemorate five men who died August 20, 1910, fighting the Big Blowup.
The Oasis Bordello Museum
I have been to three bordello museums: the Bird Cage Theater in Tombstone, Arizona; the Old Homestead in Cripple Creek, Colorado; and this one in Wallace, Idaho. The other two I would describe as “quaint,” since the era of those brothels ended long ago.
The Oasis is very different, because it was in operation, incredibly, until 1988. The Oasis is not quaint. It is an unvarnished look at prostitution, and I found the look fascinating—but depressing. My guide’s spiel was not at all lurid, but it was honest. The cheap paneling, the tiny rooms, the price list, the kitchen timers that were used to make sure patrons weren’t staying overtime, the seven color-coded medicine cabinets in one bathroom—all that and more showed the tawdry, sad side of prostitution.
I must add, however, that it was unforgettable. Some people might find the entire experience offensive on moral grounds, but I did not. I certainly would not, however, have taken my daughter up those stairs when she was young, although my guide said many parents take their children through the tour.
The visit is not without humor: A band uniform hangs in the madam’s quarters. According to my guide, the Wallace High School marching band was practicing its routines downtown in the morning, awakening the girls, who had been “off-duty” since only three o’clock in the morning. The madam made an offer: If the band would practice in the residential area instead, she would purchase new band uniforms. The offer was accepted. One of the uniform’s colors, incidentally, is scarlet.
There is no admission to explore the main floor or the basement of the Oasis, neither of which was related to the brothel. The cost of visiting the upstairs, with its waiting room, cribs, madam’s quarters, bathroom, and kitchen-dining area, is reasonable.
WHEN YOU GO
Wallace is 145 miles west of the Bearmouth exit, the route to Garnet. It is 114 miles west of Missoula, Montana, and 50 miles east of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Interstate 90.
The concrete ore bin of Burke’s Hecla Mine, at about six stories high, attests to the size of the mining operations north of Wallace, Idaho.