Burke, Idaho — Canyon Was Too Narrow for a Normal Town

Burke grew in a canyon north of Wallace where silver mines attracted workers faster than the terrain could comfortably hold them.

Steep mountains left almost no flat ground. Buildings, tracks, road and creek all competed for the same strip of valley floor.

The Tiger Hotel became the famous solution.

Railroad tracks effectively passed through part of the building because there was no convenient place to put both hotel and train separately.

Thousands of people once lived and worked in Burke Canyon during the mining peak.

Fires, labor conflict and mine closures gradually reduced the population, leaving industrial ruins and scattered habitation.

The canyon never became wider.

Eventually it simply had fewer things trying to fit inside it.