Kellogg: The Jackass That Founded a Town, and the Smelter That Poisoned It

A sign on the outskirts of Kellogg, Idaho, reads: 'This is a town founded by a jackass and inhabited by its descendants.' The locals put that sign up themselves, and they meant it as a compliment, because without a jackass named Bill, none of this would exist.

In September of eighteen eighty-five, a down-on-his-luck prospector named Noah Kellogg was camped in these mountains with his donkey. During the night, Bill wandered off. Kellogg found him the next morning grazing contentedly on mountain grass near a shelf of galena, a lead-silver ore that catches the light like pewter. By legend, Kellogg had stumbled onto what would become the Bunker Hill Mine, though Phillip O'Rourke filed the claim. It became one of the richest deposits of silver and lead in North American history. The mine employed thousands of workers, made Idaho a global center of metal production, and gave the Silver Valley its name. The town that grew up around it was named for the prospector, not the donkey, though Bill arguably did the real work.

For nearly a century, Kellogg thrived on the ore pulled from these mountains. Then came the consequences. The Bunker Hill Company operated a primary lead smelter beginning in nineteen seventeen, and for decades it poured lead, zinc, and cadmium into the air and soil of the valley. By the early nineteen seventies, health studies found dangerously high blood-lead levels in children living near the smelter, including in the nearby community of Smelterville.

In nineteen eighty-three, the Environmental Protection Agency listed the Bunker Hill complex on the national priorities list. Today the surrounding Coeur d'Alene Basin cleanup is one of the largest Superfund efforts in the country, spanning parts of northern Idaho and eastern Washington. Cleanup continues. The mine is closed. The jackass still has a statue in town.