This weekend, my wife and I decided to take a drive...a long drive. This is something that we've enjoyed doing for decades. We've done it so much that we have to drive further and further away from where we live just to see something "new". So...I had to do a fair bit of research to find a possible destination. We live in Eastern, Washington. The economy in this part of the country...aside from the past 30-ish years...WAS driven by farming, logging and mining. Over the past century, we've seen these industries go from "positively thriving" to the current status of "barely existing". Sure...farming still exists, though not to the extent that it used to. In fact, we live not far from a series of farming towns whose populations continue to dwindle as the young people seek "a better life" in the city. Logging is virtually "gone" with just a tiny bit of that industry hanging on north of us and in remote parts of the Idaho panhandle. Speaking of which, mining has long been one of Northern Idaho's defining industries. In recent years, the overall condition of the nation's economy has actually helped the mining industry...slightly...as silver, gold and other "precious metals" have seen their values climb. And so...I arrived at a possible destination; a veritable "ghost town" named Burke. When we set out on this little adventure, little did I know that what I saw would have a profound affect upon me.

The town of Burke is located in the Idaho Panhandle...east of Coeur 'd Alene near the mining towns of Kellog and Wallace. Currently, Kellog has an economy that can be described as a relatively "stable", though the town's population just crests 2,120...which is a third of what it was in 1980. As for Wallace (which is actually located near Burke)...it has a population just over the 700 mark. In the heydays of logging and mining, both towns were "booming". With the logging industry having migrated north to Canada, mining is about the only industry that exists for these two towns. Kellog, for better or worse, boasts the Silver Mountain ski resort...and that diversification certainly has helped it survive what would have otherwise ensured it's extinction. Of course, over the past 50 years, the mining industry has changed...radically. Many tasks that required human backs are now performed by machines. What used to take hundreds of miners...now requires a fraction of that human resource. Why do I mention this? Well...I suppose to qualify what I meant when I said that the current economic condition of the country had "helped the mining industry". Suffice it to say that the mining industry will probably never again employ vast numbers of people. Now that I've established a little bit of history for the region...we can get back to Burke.

If you look-up Burke on Wikipedia, you'll see that it allegedly had a population of about 300 back in 2002. Having been there (5/26/2012), I strongly doubt that there are 300 people in Burke...or just outside the main part of the town. I'm including photos with this blog post...so you can judge for yourselves. Since it's inception (roughly 1888), Burke has gone from having a positively thriving existence to becoming what I'd classify as a modern ghost town. Literally, in Burke proper...there is...NOBODY THERE. There general area is riddled with mines...and that, certainly, is what originally brought people to Burke. Below is a photo of the original town...complete with railroad tracks running right through it's center.

To get to Burke, you have to drive through Wallace...and then through the town of Gem...though, at this point, I'd call it a "suburb" of Wallace. One of the larger mining companies in the region is the Hecla Mining Corporation. This company still exists, though it's operations are significantly different from "the old days". Currently...in the Kellog/Wallace region, Hecla runs the Lucky Friday Mine. I believe that the company is publicly-traded and current valuation is roughly $250 million (Wikipedia shows this at $260m as of 2009). In Gem, is an old Hecla building that was used as a Metallurgical Research Laboratory (shown in the photo below). Behind the building are some "ruins". Not sure...but they appear to be part of a mill.

Shortly outside of Gem and the Hecla Mining Metallurgical Laboratory, we ran into another historic site; the Frisco Mill. In short, there were two very large mines located between the towns of Wallace and Burke. One was the Gem mine and the other was the Frisco. Originally, this site was the location of a 4-story mill. While I've never seen a photo of the mill, I can tell you that it must have been quite large. Frisco is also the location of a tragedy. Due to wage cuts, hard rock miners decided to go on strike in 1892. The company decided to combat the strike by bringing in replacement workers. This caused an escalation in hostilities between the disenfranchised miners and the company. This friction eventually became a "war", provoked by the discovery of a company spy named Charles Siringo. During this war, several boxes of dynamite were exploded...destroying the mill on July 11, 1892. 6 people lost their lives. It took the involvement of the US Army to stop the war. This tragedy isn't the only one of it's kind; indeed, mining wars broke out at multiple points during the late 1890's. You think life is tough now? Imagine what it was like back then! Of course, without those companies, there would have been no jobs, no livelihoods...and no western towns like Burke. No boon comes with only "upside"; there is always a "downside"...

In all reality, the Coeur d' Alene mining area became a hotbed of violence between miners and multiple mining companies. To say that this region boasts a checkered past...is an understatement. The violence long-since ended, it certainly makes for interesting history! When people refer to the "Wild West", often they think of locations like the Dakotas and the Southwest. I used to share that kind of thinking...though I've since come to realize that Western History includes a lot more than just those two regions. In fact, mining...if you follow it's history for the Western 11 States, plays perhaps the biggest role in the conquering, rape and eventual civilization of "The Wild West". Since we have limited time/real estate for a blog posting, I'll have to eschew an enjoyable tangent on the mining history of the West. Instead, I'll try to narrow the focus down to it's relationship with the town of Burke. 

At one point, Burke was home to the Hercules Silver Mine, one of the richest mines in Northern Idaho. This mine was originally started by Harry L. Day and Fred Harper. Eventually, other investors would participate in the growth of the mining operation (including an alleged assassin of a government official!). Really, the history behind the Hercules Silver Mine is fascinating...and if enough of you enjoy this posting, you may convince me to tell you the tale behind this rough, western company. For now, I'll just tell you that the Hercules Silver Mine became the primary mine of the Hecla Mining Corporation (which went on to own mines in multiple states and countries). Keep Hecla in your mind as you continue to read on through this post; it plays a pivotal role in the story.

Due to the inability to add more images to this intial posting, I'll have to do it as a "multi-part story". So...we'll go ahead and end "Chapter 1" with the tragic explosion of the Frisco Mine. As the TV shows used to say at the end of an episode when I was but a young lad, "Stay tuned for our next exciting adventure...".