One thing that Valley does have is a post office, which is on Hemlock Street, one block west of 4th Avenue, which is also Highway 231. On the side of the post office an airbrush wizard named Josh McCurdy has done a really nice mural depicting the working life of hard rock miners of the area in days gone by. It is done as a collage of scenes from the Double Eagle Mine. Made to emulate a pen and ink drawing, it was airbrushed with black paint on the white wall and covered with a sealer.
Though the mural is signed, the signature is nearly undecipherable, but the date, '04 can be easily distinguished. The "
KRE8" is what gave away the artist's identity. Josh McCurdy, the artist, is the owner and operator of
Kre-8 Airbrushing Studio in Spokane. Though he specializes in automotive artwork, he will airbrush a work on anything that will take paint.
The Double Eagle Mine was primarily a copper mine on Stensgar Mountain in the Chewelah District of Stevens County, Washington which produced in 1916 and 1939.
This wasn't a mining town that boomed to a population of thousands, then busted down to dozens. It's pretty much always been the sleepy little backwater that it is today. It has a post office, a general store, fairgrounds, a fire hall, a cemetery, a nice little town square and not much more. The town's only store was built in 1908 by George Kulzer to replace the previous store which burned in that same year.