The modern surveillance state casts a long shadow back to the center of silver extraction: the Coeur d’Alene Mining District in northern Idaho during the late nineteenth century. In 1892 Charles Siringo, a Pinkerton agent, ran for his life from the Gem Mine through the mountains at Burke Canyon, during a heated labor dispute.

Pinkerton National Detective Agency routinely attempted to crush labor activity in many of the mines in the Coeur d'Alenes. In an act of deception, Charles Siringo, under the alias C. Leon Allison, infiltrated the Gem Miners Union and became union secretary reporting all labor activity to the Mine Owners Protective Association (MOA), a group of mine bosses. Once Siringo was identified, a backlash of industrial violence swept through the canyons of the Coeur d'Alene Mining District and ultimately led to martial Law.

Miners at the Gem mine worked for $3.50 a shift for millionaire bosses in one of the most dangerous extractive industries, hard rock mining. Unions were set up at many of the mines operating in the Coeur d'Alene's in an effort to secure higher wages and shorter working days. Union activity, though, remained under the watchful eye of Pinkerton and groups like the MOA. In 1883 the Western Federation of Miners (WMF) was established in an effort to combine the fractured union organizations and to promote unified tactics within the unionization movement. In acts of repeated deception, Pinkerton agents turned in and intimidated the more radical union organizers.

Siringo escaped that day in Burke Canyon. He went on in a successful and colorful career of union-busting, chasing outlaws, and writing a series of popular books about his exploits. Violence between mine owners and the men who worked the mines continued in the Silver Valley, with major outbreaks in 1892 and 1899, and the assassination of Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg in 1905, allegedly by Western Federation of Miners member Harry Orchard.

The events at the Gem Mine in 1892 were a microcosm of American labor history at the turn-of-the-century, an era that was often punctuated by similar labor violence.

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If you had visited this bar in the late 19th century, you'd have encountered dance hall girls, gamblers, and famous lawman Wyatt Earp. Welcome to one of the oldest bars in the Silver Valley, The Snake Pit, in Kingston, Idaho.

The wooden sign out front cites the establishment of the bar at 1880, though the place might have opened in 1879. A common drinking hole for working men and women and a place for train travelers to get their heads straight after a long ride, The Snake Pit holds a central place in the history of the Silver Valley.

Not only was the bar a popular watering hole, it was also famous for its food, gambling, and the ladies upstairs who offered additional entertainments. The women who worked in the upstairs brothel were locals from the surrounding mining towns. The Snake Pit embodied all the cultural taboos of gambling, vice, and women, but the bar hasn't dried up, and the food has satisfied the voracious hunger of many kind folks over the years. As the cold war boomed in the 1950s, Rocky Mountain Oysters became a favorite choice for those daring enough to ingest a vital element of the mountain west's famous culinary tradition. Dreams of cowboys on the western frontier could be entertained with the soft power of succulent vittles.

The interior of the bar is filled with memorabilia and paintings that seem to tell their own stories about northern Idaho and the larger history of the mountain west. Locals were encouraged to bring in their own items if they wanted to put them on display. Newspaper clippings remind us of the terror of World War II, and a picture of Teddy Roosevelt harkens to the rough and tough frontier cowboy dream. The stone fireplace was built in the 1960s. Bar locals were asked to bring in their own "pet rocks" for the construction. While Wyatt Earp's stool remains barren, make sure to enjoy this historic landmark, and tip one back in remembrance of the departed prospectors and miners of early Idaho.

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