Lucky Friday Mine

 lead production / processing, zinc mine/processing, silver mine

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The Lucky Friday mine of Hecla Mining is one of the very few mines still producing in Idaho's Silver Valley.

For nearly a century, several famous mines such as the Bunker Hill, Sunshine and Sullivan, produced large quantities of rich silver-lead-zinc ore which were treated in the Bunker Hill smelter at Kellogg. At one time this area produced more silver each year than any place else in the world. But the smelter and most of the mines closed in the 1980s. A few cities such as Kellogg and Wallace have weathered the ups and downs of the industry pretty well. While other towns like Burke and Murray are only shadows of what they once were. And still others like Eagle City are gone altogether.

Currently, ore produced at Lucky Friday Mine is processed in a flotation concentrator. This process produces both a silver-lead concentrate and a zinc concentrate. The concentrates are shipped to the Teck Cominco smelter in Trail BC where the silver, lead and zinc metals are extracted.