Places in Idaho: The Sierra Silver Mine Tour

Basic Information

• Name: Sierra Silver Mine
• Where: Wallace, Idaho
• Cost: $16 adults / $8.50 kids
• Hours: Open 7 days a week, summer hours 10 AM – 4 PM
• More Information: SierraSilverMine.org

Directions

The Sierra Sliver Mine is located in Wallace, Idaho and easily accessed off of I-90.  The mine tours begin at the mine tour office located in downtown Wallace on Cedar Street.  The office is where tickets for a mine tour can be purchased.

Parking

Parking for the mine tours is found by using downtown parking spaces.  On summer weekends Wallace can get pretty busy, but it was still easy to find a place to park.

Narrative

I saw a brochure about tours offered by the Sierra Silver Mine in Wallace, Idaho.  So I made it a point this summer to load up my kids and make the drive 1.5 hour drive to Wallace from Spokane.  The drive through the Coeur d’Alene Mountains on I-90 is quite a spectacular.  In the middle of these mountains is the small mining community of Wallace.

Once we arrived in Wallace we easily found the Sierra Sliver Mine Tour office.  Inside we bought our tickets and then had to wait an hour for our scheduled tour time to begin.  Fortunately the inside of the office had a very large gift shop to check out that helped pass the time:

When our scheduled tour time arrived we proceeded to load up into a trolley in front of the office that would take us to the Sierra Silver Mine:

The drive over to the mine takes less than 10 minutes and during this time the driver talks about the city of Wallace and its mining history.  Once the trolley arrives at the mine it dropped us off and the tour guide Marty began the mine tour.  He began by explaining some of the mining hand tools on display in front of the entrance shaft:

After explaining all the different hand tools we then put on our hard hats and proceeded to follow Marty into the mine:

One of the first things he showed us was how early miners detected the presence of dangerous gases.  The early miners used canaries who would quickly die if dangerous gases were present and thus warn the miners to evacuate the area:

Marty then took us further into the mine shaft and showed us more equipment and then turned off the lights so we can experience total darkness.  He then lit a candle to demonstrate the type of light that early miners had available to them to work with.  Candles definitely did not provide much light in total darkness.  Marty also showed us the toilet used in a mine called a “honey pot”:

We next went and saw Marty operate a water powered rock drill which was extremely loud:

After operating the drill Marty explained how the Sierra Silver Mine 40 years ago hosted the nation’s only high school class inside of a mine.  The local high school used to have a mining class that students could take.  If they passed the class they were guaranteed a job in a local mine.  The closing of mines in the area over the years ultimately led to the ending of the program.  An information display from the mine’s high school days was posted:

We were next taken to see a mine shaft that had been flooded with ground water and Marty told us about how a local student during a class trip had accidentally dropped her cell phone into the shaft when she was trying to take a picture:

We next went and checked out a machine that is used to dig rock out of a mine shaft after it had been created with explosives.  This machine visitors were able to use and dig rock out of the shaft:

Marty next showed us how the rock was then loaded up into an ore car to be removed from the shaft:

The tour around the mine took about an hour and after seeing all the equipment we then walked back out of the mine to await the return of the trolley to pick us up:

Conclusion

The Sierra Silver Mine Tour is a really well executed operation that allows visitors to not only enter the mine, but actually use some of the mine equipment.  The guide is a retired miner who is very friendly, super knowledgable, and passionate about mining.  This all combines for a highly recommended tour for anyone interested in learning more about mining.