OK defosterf and all the rest of you meatheads. Get out your Atlas and find Idaho. That's good, now up in the Northern Panhandle find Interstate 90. At the far east side (to the right, numbskulls) is the Montana border. I-90 crosses Lookout Pass at about 7000 feet.

Now, heading west....to the left....the first town you hit is Mullan and the last town we'll cover to today is Kellogg. Can you find Kellogg on your map? That entire stretch is known as The Silver Valley for....can you guess? Silver mining. This 20 mile stretch is in a deep canyon that at times is only 200 yards or so wide...if that. The mountains along there rise up anywhere from 8,000 to 9500 feet above the valley floor. In the mining heyday, the mines were located mostly in the upper stretches of the canyon from up near the pass to Wallace. The smelters were located in Kellogg as it is downhill from Mullan and made moving the ore an easier job. The silver ore was broken up and somewhat processed along that canyon in various areas. Like the Compressor District, the Crusher District and so on. A narrow gauage RR took the ore from place to place.

Wallace was about in the middle and thus became headquarters for the miners. Well, where there's miners there's liquor, and where there's liquor there's women. And thus Wallace became a famous Bordello Town of the Idaho Panhandle. The Houses of ill repute actually continued in operation until the mid 1980's. The city of Wallace, seeing $$ signs from this actually turned one of the old houses into "The Bordello Museum."

That area is deep in the canyon, from Mullan to Kellogg, and the Interstate winds through there like a snake. If a speed limit sign says 45 MPH, it means just that. The guard rails along that stretch bear witness to those who think the signs are kidding.

That's all for today class. Tomorrow we will cover the history of Two Dot and Ringling Montana.

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When i get great service, i will go out of my way to let the person's boss know.
And usually the boss is expecting to hear complaining, and they are VERY happy and surprised to get positive comments. I do that everywhere. Restaurants, stores, whatever.

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Bob. This is a packer forum and I find your posts in the general disscussion section well writen, and entertaining.

This post kind of jumped on desorf and the rest of us "meat heads" for not knowing our geography. I love the fact you love Montana, I do too.

Just wondering... When are you going to post somthing about the Packers, how you feel about the team this year, the management, the expectations of the team.

You know, a Montana Bob post in the Packer Discussion Thread?

I would be pleased to see a post about the Packers. You have valuable insite.

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I apologize for getting carried away. I was in no way trying to pick on anyone. As for posting in the Packer Discussion, I love the Packers, but do not get carried away like some people do with the wins and losses. I couldn't tell you the starting O-line if my life depended on it. If they lose all the rest of the games, hey, at least they won 7 this year. That's why I stay out of that area most of the time. Life's too short and fragile to get worked up over a team and management we have no control over.

Bob

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