The Silver Valley

Book excerpt: The descent into Idaho from the Montana border down Lookout Pass on Interstate 90 largely follows the trail Capt. John Mullan blazed over 150 years ago. The Silver Valley is home to Shoshone County's seat, the historic silver-mining city of Wallace, which has been something of a phoenix rising out of the ashes of two great fires. Along with Wallace, the valley encompasses many other small mining towns, such as Mullan, Silverton, Osburn, Kellogg, Smelterville, Pinehurst, and Kingston, with diverse histories that are both humorous and heartbreaking. It also surrounds the Cataldo Mission, Idaho's oldest standing building, built by the Jesuits and the Coeur d'Alene tribe in 1848.