Souvenir Mining Spoons/Souvenir Mining Spoon Bunker Hill Mine

Souvenir Mining Spoons

Souvenir Mining Spoon Bunker Hill Mine.JPG - SOUVENIR MINING SPOON BUNKER HILL MINE - Sterling silver spoon embossedwith a detailed picture of the Bunker Hill Mine Wardner Ida; marked Idaho on handle with state seal, tree and wheat, 5 1/2 in long, 18.5 gms., marked on back Sterling with a mfg. hallmark (The late 1880s saw a boom in mining activity in Idaho's Coeur d’Alene or Silver Valley as railroad lines were built through what was previously inaccessible wilderness. The Bunker Hill mine, the largest of the Coeur d'Alene area mines, was discovered in 1885 by Noah Kellogg. Initially, the ore was shipped out of the Silver Valley by train for processing; but within a few years, mills had been built on-site to extract the metals from the ore. Bunker Hill, like other mines in the region, was the site of intense struggles between regional miners' unions and mine owners/managers. Although miners were originally lured to the general area by the promise of gold, the primary metals mined in the valley were silver, zinc, and lead. The total quantities produced are impressive: over a billion ounces of silver, 3 million tons of zinc, and 8 million tons of lead, totaling over $6 billion in value, ranking the valley among the top ten mining districts in world history. During the 1970s, nearly half of the nation's silver production came from the Silver Valley mines, primarily the Bunker Hill. After nearly a century of vigorous mining and smelting activity, operations were severely curtailed in the early 1980s, resulting in massive unemployment, significant loss of population and substantial environmental cleanup challenges.)

Souvenir Mining Spoon Bunker Hill Mine | SOUVENIR MINING SPOON BUNKER HILL MINE - Sterling silver spoon embossed with a detailed picture of the Bunker Hill Mine Wardner Ida; marked Idaho on handle with state seal, tree and wheat, 5 1/2 in long, 18.5 gms., marked on back Sterling with a mfg. hallmark (The late 1880s saw a boom in mining activity in Idaho's Coeur d’Alene or Silver Valley as railroad lines were built through what was previously inaccessible wilderness. The Bunker Hill mine, the largest of the Coeur d'Alene area mines, was discovered in 1885 by Noah Kellogg. Initially, the ore was shipped out of the Silver Valley by train for processing; but within a few years, mills had been built on-site to extract the metals from the ore. Bunker Hill, like other mines in the region, was the site of intense struggles between regional miners' unions and mine owners/managers. Although miners were originally lured to the general area by the promise of gold, the primary metals mined in the valley were silver, zinc, and lead. The total quantities produced are impressive: over a billion ounces of silver, 3 million tons of zinc, and 8 million tons of lead, totaling over $6 billion in value, ranking the valley among the top ten mining districts in world history. During the 1970s, nearly half of the nation's silver production came from the Silver Valley mines, primarily the Bunker Hill. After nearly a century of vigorous mining and smelting activity, operations were severely curtailed in the early 1980s, resulting in massive unemployment, significant loss of population and substantial environmental cleanup challenges.)

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