Wallace, Idaho — Town That Made the Interstate Go Around

For years, Interstate 90 effectively arrived in downtown Wallace and met a traffic light.

The problem was not engineering.

It was preservation.

Wallace had rebuilt much of downtown in brick after an 1890 fire, leaving an unusually intact commercial district from the Silver Valley mining boom.

When highway planners proposed running the interstate through it, preservationists fought back.

Historic-district protections ultimately helped force the freeway onto an elevated bypass completed in 1991.

That survival is only one chapter in a town with too much history for its acreage.

Silver mining made Wallace wealthy and placed it at the center of violent labor conflicts during the 1890s.

Mines and railroads filled a valley already short on flat ground.

Modern Wallace turned that preserved density into an asset through tourism, recreation and mining history.

The mountains forced roads together.

The buildings forced the interstate apart.