Opening night celebration at Staff House

KELLOGG – Several new displays and exhibits will receive their first looks during the Shoshone County Mining and Smelting Museum’s season-opening gala, later this week.  

Sara Ash, a board member with the museum, is excited for the opening and believes the new exhibits should attract both tourists and Silver Valley visitors alike.  

“The museum houses exhibits on mining, as well as history of the valley,” Ash said. “We have a room on early medical supplies/treatments, school, boy scouts, clothing, and two of our newest exhibits, "A Tale of Two Cities", about Wardner and Kellogg during Bunker Hill's heydays, and a mural that was donated by the Smithsonian that was originally slated to be displayed in the Kellogg Post office, but was voted down.”  

The mural display is particularly fascinating because it was part of a national program where money, dispersed through various work relief programs during the Great Depression, was used by the U.S. Treasury Department’s fine arts office created a competition to put a mural in every new post office being built across the (then) 48 states.  

Artist Fletcher Martin’s painting, Mine Rescue, depicts two men carrying a stretcher holding an injured miner, was chosen to go into the Kellogg Post Office. However, significant public outcry over the painting’s source material led to a unique compromise. Instead of displaying Mine Rescue, Fletcher was tasked with creating a new painting for the building. The second attempt resulted in a painting called Discovery, which depicted excited prospectors discovering silver.  

The Shoshone County Mining and Smelting Museum, also known as the Staff House, was originally a home built in 1903 for former Bunker Hill Mine chairman Stanley Easton. Following the relocation of the Easton family in 1932, the house became the home for many of Bunker Hill’s single employees. In 1940, the house was moved to its current location, and a basement was added. In 1986, five years after Bunker Hill’s 1981 shutdown, the building was purchased for $1 under the promise that it would be converted into a museum.  

Along with the new exhibits, the opening night gala will also feature drinks and light appetizers, a presentation from Bunker Hill Mine CEO Sam Ash, and a raffle for a special underground tour of the Bunker Hill Mine. 

The Shoshone County Mining and Smelting Museum’s opening night gala is Friday, May 23, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. The museum is located at 820 McKinley Ave. In Kellogg.