Built in 1924, the two storey brick city hall proudly sports its date of construction on the upper floor of the front elevation, 1924. Standing on concrete piers here, I-90 zooms by immediately east of the building, creating a bit of anachronism in this mostly 1890s silver boom town. With the town having been established in 1883, the town hall is a relative newcomer to the downtown scene. Not that Wallace went without a city hall for 41 years; this building replaced an earlier wood frame building, location unknown. The building continues to house the city offices along with the city fire station. Far from ostentatious in its design and finish, the design of the building was the work of Spokane architect Charles I. Carpenter.
The self proclaimed "Silver Capital of the World", Wallace today is much smaller than its peak, in the thousands prior to 1910, with a present population 784. It was in 1910 that the
Great Fire of 1910, which burned about 3,000,000 acres (12,141 km2; 4,688 sq mi) in Washington, Idaho, and Montana, took with it a third of the town. To a town intent on mining precious metal, this was looked upon as simply a slight and temporary setback. Over one billion ounces of silver, and counting, have been wrested from the ground in Shoshone county since 1884. Silver continues to be mined in the area.
An interesting factoid about Wallace is that "
every downtown building is on the National Register of Historic Places". As a result, the government was forced to build I-90,
around Wallace, instead of
through it. Another one is that this area is "
the only place on earth where more than a billion ounces of silver were mined in 100 years." The town, incidentally, was named for its founder,
Colonel William R. Wallace, who, in 1883, bought 80 acres of swamp land which eventually became Wallace.
Historic Wallace Idaho
The historic mining town of Wallace (population 784) is nestled beneath Interstate 90, halfway between two ski and recreation areas in northern Idaho's beautiful Silver Valley. The town has long been famous as the "Silver Capital of the World" with 1.2 billion ounces of silver produced in
Shoshone county since 1884.
Silver mining is still a big part of our economy, but today it is carried out in total harmony with a pristine mountain environment that attracts
outdoor recreation enthusiasts from around the world. Some folks come for the
deep powder at the two ski areas, or the variety of
bicycle trails, or the solitude of
alpine lakes, but all agree, this is the place to play. And for us lucky ones, this is a
great place to live.
Wallace is also known for the fact that every downtown building is on the National Register of Historic Places... which is
why the government finally had to go over us instead of through us in order to complete the Interstate Highway system in 1991. Now the
Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes paved bike path is directly under Interstate 90 as it passes above Wallace, following the famous South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River through the narrow Silver Valley: the only place on earth where more than
a billion ounces of silver were mined in 100 years.
From the Town of Wallace