Beautifully engraved signed and unissued Certificate from the Phoenix Mining Company of Wallace, Idaho issued in 1908. This historic document has an ornate border around it with a vignettes of miners and a a mill site. This item is hand signed by the company's president and secretary and is over 92 years old. After starting the Oreornogo claim (later to be known as the Hecla) in 1883, Colonel William R. Wallace (not a real colonel) purchased eighty acres of land at the confluence of the major canyons near Burke. The land was covered with large cedars and was swampy. He purchased the land with Sioux scrip that was later declared illegal tender, causing property ownership disputes that lasted for years. He built a cabin in 1884 and called the new community Placer Center. His wife, Lucy, arrived in the following year, changed the town's name to Wallace, and became its first postmaster for a population of fourteen people. Wallace is facinating for its history: 115 years old, bawdy in its boom times, resolute in the hard times, this town of 1010 reveles in its history. Today, five out of six tourist attractions in town celebrate the town's history and culture. Wallace is located in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District and The Silver Valley. This area was the richest silver mining region in the world. In just one hundred years, over ONE BILLION ounces of silver have been taken from mines in this valley.