Bruce:

Thank you for posting this information...

I grew up in Kellogg and later worked in Kellogg and Wallace, in my opinion the Silver Valley is probably the most interesting and historical place I have lived in all my years.

My grandmother's family lived in Wallace until 1905 when they moved to Kellogg. In the summer of 1910 she was about to enter high school and rode the train to Wallace to visit her aunt who still lived there. My grandmother used to tell the story about how they caught the last train out of Wallace heading to Kellogg before the fire hit Wallace. They got out of Wallace with nothing much more than the clothes on their backs. I wish now that I had a tape recorder back in those days for those stories.

There was fierce rivalry between Kellogg and Wallace, but it goes without saying that Harry Magnuson was a saint. He did more for the valley and the surrounding area than just about anyone I can think of. He virtually saved the town of Wallace by getting the entire city placed on the National Registry of Historic Places. He was a self made man and never forgot his roots.

It is hard to believe the railroads don't exist in the Silver Valley anymore, but the world changes.. When I was younger living on Railroad Avenue in Kellogg(in one of the houses that my greatgrandfather built in 1905)I used to watch the trains come and go all day. The freights operated M-Saturday with 50-60 car trains from Wallace to Spokane. A local ran from Wallace to Burke canyon those days; as well as a local switcher which worked Kellogg Lumber, the beer distributor plus a number of other business's in Kellogg, the Zinc Plant plus later the Fertilizer plant as well as the a couple of Lumber Yards at Smelterville. Much of the traffic was from the Bunker Hill Smelter and Zinc Plant near Kellogg. Later I worked at the Zinc Plant unloading those ore cars on weekends, home from college. There was also a daily passenger train which ran daily until 1957. We used to take the passenger train on Saturday from Kellogg to Wallace and back to visit my mothers father who lived in Wallace.

My family first came to Shoshone County in 1882 and it will always be in my heart.

best,
L.A.Scrafford