Price Tag Antiques and Silver Tea Room

Emblematic of the streetscapes of downtown Wallace is the Coeur d’Alene Hardware Company, a half-block west of the Rossi Insurance Building. The J.R. Marks and Company built a brick structure on the same lot where its frame hardware store burnt in the town’s 1890 fire. In 1892, the owners merged with the Holley-Mason Store in Spokane to become the largest outlet in the area, changing their name to the Coeur d’Alene Hardware and Foundry Company, which went on to become a major producer of mining equipment for the northwestern United States.

The two-story building was constructed on a heavy concrete and stone foundation with heavy wooden pillars strong enough to support six stories, which were never added. It had six corniced, round-arched window bays, and the owners expanded the structure in 1896 with an additional five bays. Fire shutters installed on the front and rear of the building helped save it from the devastating 1910 fire that destroyed half of Wallace and a total of three million acres. The company prospered through its manufacture of mining equipment and enlarged its retail operations to include automobiles and accessories. It even had an automobile elevator, which still exists, as do the high tin ceilings, sculptured columns, and myriad shelves of its retail operation. Today building houses the Price Tag Antiques and Silver Tea Room.