Miners Hotel - Metaline Falls, WA
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 48° 51.726 W 117° 22.382
11U E 472640 N 5412193
The historic Miners Hotel was probably the only real choice the town of Metaline Falls had for creating a fallout shelter in the 50s.
Waymark Code: WMNMA1
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 04/02/2015
Views: 3
At the time the hotel was the largest and most substantial building accessible to the public that existed in the town. As a matter of fact, that remains the case today. A large, U-shaped, five storey building, it had a full basement which, if necessary, could have accommodated 1065 persons. The fallout shelter sign on the building has become difficult to read but it appears to read "Capacity 1065".
By 1950 that would have been between two and three times the population of the town.The population peaked at just over 800 in 1930, but hard times forced the closing of the lead-zinc mines upon which the town partly depended for employment. Though the town was home to a large portland cement plant from 1911 to 1959, that, too, is now closed. Today the population has stabilized at just under 300.
The hotel was built in 1929, with three storeys, just in time for the depression. It fell on hard times for quite a few years, but, by the 1950s things were improving and the hotel received its upper two floors. In 1996, during the filming of "The Postman", the movie company remodeled the upper two floors into apartments. Today it is a hotel and apartment, with a total of 57 studio, one bedroom and two bedroom units.