Wallace, Idaho - People-Named Places on Waymarking.com

Wallace, Idaho

Wallace is located in the historic Coeur d'Alene mining district of northern Idaho. The seat of Shoshone county, Wallace today has an economy based on mining and retail trade. In 1980 its population was 1,736. In 1884 Colonel W. R. Wallace and several other men packed to the site of what is now Wallace and built a cabin. The party platted the ground and established a general layout of the town, then known as Placer Center. Also in 1884 lead ore was discovered in the area and placer mining ceased and prospecting followed in earnest. A post office was established on a special route on August 17, 1886 with Mrs. Lucie Wallace as postmistress. In 1887 a city government was set up (Col. Wallace was elected mayor; Jack Dunn, D. C. McKissick and two others were named commissioners) and the town was officially named Wallace in honor of Col. Wallace. With the arrival of the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1887 Wallace became the major supply point and economic center for the rich lead-silver Coeur d'Alene mining district. The town was incorporated in 1888; Col. Wallace, Horace King, C. M. Hall, C. W. Vender, and D. C. McKiss were appointed as the first board of trustees. By 1890 there were 878 people living in Wallace.

On July 27, 1890 fire destroyed the entire business section of Wallace. The town, originally built of wood, was rebuilt primarily with brick as the town began to reap the tremendous benefits of the developing lead-silver mines. In 1893 a city charter was obtained; W. S. Haskins was elected the first mayor under the new system. About this time a system of waterworks were installed and hydroelectric plants were constructed near the city. City postal delivery service was established in 1895, with two letter carriers, one substitute carrier, and 13 letter boxes. In 1898 Wallace became the political center of the region in addition to the economic center when it was made the county seat. By 1900 Wallace's population had grown to 2,265; it grew to 3,000 in 1910 before dropping slightly to 2,816 in 1920. It climbed to 3,634 in 1930 and to 3,839 in 1940, which would prove to be its peak population. By 1950 it had dropped to 3,149; between 1960 and 1970 it dropped further, from 2,412 to 2,206. In 1980 Wallace's population was 1,736.
From the NRHP Registration Form

The Person:
It should be noted here that the founding of Wallace was not without some excitement and the hint of a bit of possible skullduggery, that by Colonel Wallace himself. It seems that Wallace had "located", or claimed, the 80 acres of land on which Wallace sprouted, using scrip which had been nullified. The "scpipee", or original owner of the scrip had declared the scrip lost and had it replaced, the original scrip declared null and void. When this situation came to light, the original owner(s) of the land were declared not to own any of it and a land rush ensued to claim the now "open" land. See HERE for a more detailed account.

Wallace, twice wounded while fighting for the Union during the Civil War, was drawn west by the lure of riches, arriving in the "Silver Valley in about 1883. After starting the Oreornogo claim (later to be known as the Hecla) in 1883, Colonel Wallace purchased the eighty acres of land in question at the confluence of the major canyons near Burke, ID. While it seems that he may have done some underhanded dealings in founding the town, the townspeople see it differently, looking on him in quite a different light.

A native of Kentucky, Colonel Wallace died on November 16, 1901, at the age of 67 years, in Wittier, California. One newspaper epitaph mentioned that he was a cousin to General Wallace, the author of Ben Hur. For many years the location of Wallace's headstone was unknown. Wallace had been buried in an old cemetery which was "repurposed" by the city in 1967, as it was by then considered an eyesore due to lack of upkeep. The old headstones, some 2,300 of them, were stacked in various places about the city, with Wallace's headstone finally coming into the hands of a collector in Acton, California who had bought four semi trailer loads of headstones from the city. It was tracked town by a Wallace local and returned to Wallace, then placed near the entrance of the Northern Pacific Depot Railroad Museum as part of a major festival saluting the town’s namesake.