Wallace, Idaho

Searching for a place to sit out Labor Day we found ourselves in Wallace.

Wallace is known as  The Silver Capital of the World, founded in 1884 with a population of 14.   By 1985 the Wallace area had produced one billion oz. of silver and poised to produce another one billion .  The silver valley has produced 8 million tons of lead, 2 million tons of copper, and one half million ozs. of gold and continue to produce them today.Silver prices are on the increase so the mines are ramping up their efforts  for recovery, prices have risen from $3.50 to the current price of $35.00 per oz. 

The downtown Wallace area was a great place to walk around and browse the old buildings still in use today.  The Renaissance design of most of the buildings was quite interesting to look at since they were built in the late 1800’s.

Bars and bordellos lined the streets up until 1985 when the bordello closed in a hurry with the girls leaving everything behind, now the bordello is a museum.

While we were in Wallace we got to meet up with Mike and Debbie (Coldsmoke to some of you), we had a nice breakfast together and checked out the flea market with them.

Buck Knife Factory

 

Buck Knife was located in Post Falls, Id.  They built a new factory here 5 years ago after relocating from California.  The tour takes about 30 min. and gives you a good idea of how they are made.  It starts with the shaping of the blade in many different sizes  and how the steel is tempered.  They still make most of these knives by hand and they hand sharpen each one of them.  The knives are custom made and are shipped all over the world.

This guy will greet you in the lobby.

  There is a factory store also and yes we needed some new knives.

Spokane, Washington

We took a day trip over to Spokane one day so we started out with breakfast at Frank’s . This is a refurbished train car that belonged to the Great Northern Railway. The cost of the remodel was close to one million dollars, but it was restored back to it’s original state with beautiful woodwork and leaded glass inserts in the windows.  Voted best breakfast for 13 yrs in Spokane….got our vote.

And here is  what else we found....this giant Radio Flyer wagon in a downtown park.  It was really cool and really big, kids were having a ball playing in it.

After finding the wagon we wandered around town and found this.

  A giant milk bottle shaped building built back in 1930 for a dairy company.

Also a group of metal runners on the sidewalk near a park in the city. Spokane has beautiful green spaces in the city center.

Newport, Wa

  It’s time for some R&R since we’ve been so busy, so we settled in at the Old American  RV park in Newport, Wa for a week.

This is a view of the downtown area, it has a few shops and eateries that’s about all.  We were about 35 miles into Spokane, Wa and about the same distance to Coeur D’Alene, Id. 

On the trip over to Newport we were amazed at these hugh wheat fields. Some was being harvested by farmers and some was being harvested by a moose.

This was a strange sight, one I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager a Ben Franklin store.  I thought  they had all closed years ago.  The prices sure wasn’t five and dime anymore.