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Moving History Forward: Recalling Black Sunday

by RICHARD SHELDON/Special to The Press
| August 28, 2021 1:00 AM

The Wallace area is wealthy beyond its history of having the richest silver mines in the U.S., union strikes, mining disasters, its claim that it is the “center of the universe” and its scofflaw climate, which tolerated many human vices — bars, gambling and prostitution, to name a few.

Almost nothing impacts the collective memory of the citizens as does June 23, 1991 — now regarded locally as “Black Sunday.” On that day, more than 150 federal, state and local law enforcement agents spread out along I-90 from west to east and raided every bar in Shoshone County from Cataldo to Mullan. An informal telephone tree in the west end of Silver Valley gave early warning to the east end that a massive raid had started. Many fled.

The major target of the raid was illegal gambling, with the gambling machines being tangible evidence of criminal activity. Machines and money were confiscated. Incidentally, if a brothel was encountered, it too was shut down. At the time, there were only two active brothels known to be operating in Wallace. Two hundred video gambling machines were confiscated and over a half a million dollars in cash was seized by the government and never returned.

Arrests were made and trials followed. The sheriff was indicted and tried twice on a RICO charge (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act. The prosecuting attorney for the US Justice Department’s Office of Public Integrity was unable to convince the jury that the sheriff was responsible for over 100 years of gambling and prostitution. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, the second an acquittal.

Some say the raid brought an end to prostitution in Wallace. Most of the citizens of Wallace say prostitution was slowly dying due to the poor economics of the Silver Valley and the deepening fear of AIDS. The raid served to place a final nail in the coffin.

Some Wallace citizens are still bitter about what they perceive as the government’s heavy-handedness.

Besides the enormous show of force, the wide net cast that Sunday apparently made little attempt to sort out the criminal from the honest businessmen. Worse, there is the belief that the two-year pre-raid investigation included the FBI buying a local tavern and brothel to gather information. Whether this is true or not, is in question. (author’s note: Ruby Ridge occurred 14 months later.) Source: Branstetter, Heather, Ph.D. Selling Sex in the Silver Valley. History Press, 2017.

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The Museum of North Idaho was unable to have its yearly Gala in 2020 due to the “vile virus.”

This year the Museum wants to celebrate with our loyal members, volunteers and general public at the Coeur d’Alene Inn on Oct. 16. For more information, visit www.museumni.org or call 208-664-3448, ext. 2.