Burke Canyon

Burke Canyon
Cliffs above a mine in Burke Canyon.
Burke Canyon
Floor elevation	3,768 ft (1,148 m)
Length	14 miles (23 km)[1] Northeast–southwest
Width	300 feet (91 m)[2]
Geography
Coordinates	47°30′49″N 115°51′17″W / 47.51361°N 115.85472°W / 47.51361; -115.85472
Traversed by	Idaho State Highway 4
Rivers	Burke-Canyon Creek

Burke Canyon is the canyon of the Burke-Canyon Creek, which runs through the northernmost part of Shoshone County, Idaho, U.S., within the northeastern Silver Valley. A hotbed for mining in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Burke Canyon now contains several ghost towns and remnants of former communities along Idaho State Highway 4, which runs northeast through the narrow canyon to the Montana border.

Burke Canyon takes its name from the town of Burke; settlers arrived in the canyon in 1884 after silver, lead, and zinc were found in mines throughout. Between 1886 and 1890, numerous mining communities developed in the canyon. Many of the communities in Burke Canyon saw multiple labor disputes, namely the Coeur d'Alene labor strike of 1892 and the confrontation of 1899, which resulted in violent conflict between miners and mine owners.

Populations throughout the canyon's towns dwindled in the late-twentieth century after a series of natural disasters and mine closures, and the last active mine in the canyon was closed in 1991, leaving the majority of the communities unpopulated. The Environment Protection Agency includes Burke Canyon as part of the Coeur d'Alene basin's Superfund sites due to hard metal and waste contamination of Burke-Canyon Creek.