Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Silverton, ID

Silverton is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Shoshone County, Idaho, in the Silver Valley of the northern panhandle.

As of the 2020 census, Silverton had a population of 594, and a 2020-2024 American Community Survey estimate put the community at about 209 households.

The Silver Valley's towns, all in Shoshone County, run west to east as Pinehurst, Smelterville, Kellogg, Wardner, Osburn, Silverton, Wallace, and Mullan.

The Silver Valley is noted for a mining heritage dating back to the 1880s, and the district produced over a billion ounces of silver, three million tons of zinc, and eight million tons of lead, ranking it among the top ten mining districts in world history.

The National Fire Protection Association lists Silverton as the location of the Devil's Broom fire, part of the Great Fire of 1910.

Silverton was formerly called Stump Town, and its post office was created in 1947 along with the change of name to Silverton, suggested by a neighbor of the storekeeping Woefel family who hailed from Colorado.

In the early 1960s, the Shoshone County Poor Farm became the county infirmary and then the county nursing home, before closing and reopening as the Wallace District Ranger Station offices of the Coeur d'Alene National Forest, and the old mansion on the property now serves as a private home and bed and breakfast.

The Silver Valley's only radio station, KWAL, was set up behind the poorhouse in 1938, moved about three miles west to Osburn in 1948, and finally surrendered its license in 2019.

Silverton's ZIP code is 83867, and the old Yellowstone Trail Highway once wound along the north side of the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River past the community.