ided to head to Kellogg, there was a number of geocaches in the area and since we hadn’t done that many in the last couple of days we would see what we could find. Kellogg is a mining town that unfortunately fallen on hard times. For one hundred years, the Bunker Hill mine and smelter was known world wide as a leader in its field. Then with hardly any notice the Bunker Hill shut it's mine and smelter down, throwing thousands of men out of work. In order to revitalize itself the town, adopted an Alpine theme and built a gondola to the top of the Jack Ass Ski Bowl, renamed it Silver Mountain; changed Jack Ass Gulch to Jacob's Gulch and suddenly a new industry was built, unfortunately tourism has not seemed to be a profitable as the mining and there were a lot of empty store fronts down town Kellogg, the only business in town that seems to be thriving is Dave Smith Auto and the local thrift store. There is a large number of geocaches located throughout 
Kellogg, magnetized to large piece of mining equipment. Sometimes these micros are easy to find and other they are very difficult. We did find all of them. After exploring what was left of the town we checked how much it would be to go up the mountain on the gondola and at $40 per person we decided that was a bit expensive, so instead we headed up a logging road to do a geocaches overlooking the valley from a satellite station.
As we headed back down we stopped in the little town of Wardner, Idaho. We parked in front of the town hall and as I was trying to get organized and getting Lindy secured in the Jeep, I told Len that the cache was over by the little general store. As he was walking that direction a gentleman came out of the general store to 
say hello. He said that his name was Chuck Peterson and he was the owner of the general store and the little museum beside it. He also knew where the cache was because it was his friend who had hid it on this property. After we found the cache Chuck invited us into his general store, told us a few stories and then invited us for a private tour of his next door museum. He was a very interesting man to talk to and his collections were quite fun to look at. He even had his own coffin that was used as a wishing well. One of his stories was how the town of Kellogg got it’s name.
It happened in 1885. A gentleman by the name of Noah Kellogg, a gold prospector and carpenter, lived in the Town of Murray which is 20 miles northeast as the crow flies. Being a gold prospector down on his luck, he ran around the Town of Murray looking for someone to give him a grubstake. He finally ran into two business men, Mr. Peck and Mr. Cooper, who loaned him enough money to buy grub and they loaned him a jackass (burro) to carry the tools. He started down the great north fork of the Coeur d'Alene River, came onto a trail and headed south over the mountains. Coming out on the south fork of the Coeur d'Alene River, he crossed it and went further on south up Milo Gulch and ended up about 1,000 yards above the present City Hall of Wardner. There he made camp, ate and went to sleep, and during the night, the jackass wandered off. In the morning he got up looking around for the stupid animal and hearing him braying, spotted him way up high on the hillside. Where the animal was standing he saw the sunshine glittering on something which turned out to be a large outcropping of galena (lead ore). And that was the discovery of the great Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines on September 4, 1885.
He then told us how Wardner got its name, because of a gentleman by the name of James Wardner. He was an entrepreneur and he'd do anything for a quick buck. He operated a grocery store in the Town of Murray and when he heard about this great strike, he threw a couple of bottles of whiskey in the saddlebag, jumped on his horse and headed down the great north fork of the Coeur d'Alene River, over the mountains and across the south fork of the Coeur d'Alene River and headed up Milo Creek. He got to the mining camp with Kellogg and O'Rourke, drank up the whiskey and then asked if he could borrow a hatchet. Feeling so good from drinking all the whiskey, they would give him anything. He took the hatchet and went out of the camp, walked around the valley for a few hours blazing trees, went back to camp and Noah and O'Rourke asked if he had staked a claim. He boldly said, "Yes. I just staked out the water rights for this valley." Noah Kellogg and O'Rourke knew they had been had and took Jim in as a partner.
In 1900, Jim Wardner sold out his interest for $100.000.00 and went to Seattle, Washington. He purchased an island by the name of Eliza, imported black cats and went to the Seattle people and asked if he could have their stray black cats. They were overjoyed to get rid of the strays. He took them to the island, raised them and then he would kill them and took the hides and sold them to Easterners for $2.00 each. The Easterners were buying them like crazy and making fur coats and hats. Jim was doing a fantastic business because he called them "hood seal" fur. When the Seattle people found out he was feeding cats to cats, and that is known as "catabolism", they shut him down. Then he went to Fairhaven, Washington, started a banking business, water company and a logging company and then he built himself a castle. The castle still stands today and they've made a bed and breakfast out of it. He entrepreneured some more, lost his castle and his money. Then he went to Canada and started mining and logging and they named a town in Canada after him; Wardner, B.C.
We then told Chuck that we knew where Wardner, BC was since we were from Canada and from the Kootenays. He then showed us some pictures of a group of people from Idaho who took a street trolley and went to Wardner, BC to help them celebrate their 100 anniversary.
So after getting a copy of Chuck’s history book and thanking him for the wonderful stories and the tour of his museum we head back down the road to Kellogg and then back to Osborne and the motor home. It was a very full day. Time for another movie and then early to bed.
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