Bunker Hill Is Back: Kellogg’s Legendary Silver Mine Restarts After 40 Years

The most storied name in Idaho’s Silver Valley is coming back to life. Bunker Hill Mining is restarting the historic Bunker Hill Mine in Kellogg this summer, the first time the site has operated in more than 40 years, and as KHQ reported, the new silver operation is expected to create about 200 jobs.

What’s happening in Kellogg

Per the company’s update covered by KHQ, construction and commissioning had reached 85 percent complete heading into the June restart window, and an underground drill program is already running to sharpen mine planning and expand the resource. The company’s president and CEO said the team was growing by the day as the restart approached. For a valley town built by this exact mine, 200 new mining jobs is not a statistic, it is a homecoming.

Why this name carries so much weight

Bunker Hill is not just another restart story. The claim was staked in 1885 by Noah Kellogg, a broke prospector whose braying pack burro, legend insists, was found standing right on the shining outcrop. The town that grew around it took his name. Over roughly a century of operation, the mine moved more than 40 million tons of ore containing about 162 million ounces of silver, 3.2 million tons of lead, and 1.3 million tons of zinc, and at its peak it employed some 2,700 people. When it shut down in the early 1980s, the Silver Valley lost its anchor, and Kellogg has spent the decades since rebuilding.

Why it matters beyond Idaho

Half of the silver mined every year now goes into industry, not jewelry: it is the metal screen-printed onto solar cells and built into the contacts and circuit boards of everything that plugs in. A major American silver district adding back a producing mine, right alongside Hecla’s Lucky Friday down the road, is exactly the kind of domestic supply story this industry needs told. See silver in our Strategic Metals Glossary for the full mine-to-product picture.

The tour connection

Episodes 2 and 3 of Hunting Hidden Treasures roll through the Silver Valley, and Bunker Hill Mining is the first company aboard for Season 1. Read the full Idaho master report for the state’s whole story, from the Orofino gold rush to the antimony comeback at Stibnite.