REGIONAL REPORT / VANISHING MINES : The Future Is Up in the Air for Mineral Area in Idaho : Silver Valley prospects for tourists to even out economy. The centerpiece of its campaign is the world’s longest aerial gondola.

Silver is no longer sovereign here in the world’s largest silver-producing region. So another Western mining center, following a pattern established in mining areas of Colorado, Arizona and Utah, is prospecting for tourist dollars to survive.

This time, though, there’s more to overcome than the far-off forces that have driven down the price of silver.

For the centerpiece of the fledgling tourism push in north Idaho’s Silver Valley, a new aerial gondola--at 3.1 miles the world’s longest--glides over one of the country’s most toxic Superfund sites, 21 square miles of neighborhoods, playgrounds and hillsides that flourish despite the temporarily buried threat of arsenic, cadmium, lead and other poisons from a filterless smelter.

The highest level of lead ever registered in children by the federal Centers for Disease Control was recorded here in the mid-1970s.

“You were 8 years old and you’re hacking and coughing going up a hill to school,” recalled Bruce Hickey, 37, a Kellogg native and former miner now working as an attendant on the gondola.

The mines are still open--and struggling--but pollution has been contained pending cleanup of the Superfund site and there is no danger to visitors, officials say. To revive Kellogg and the rest of the mining district, a 35-mile belt in the Idaho Panhandle running through Smelterville, Silverton, Wallace and other small towns along I-90 to the Montana border, a heavy lineup has been recruited:

An Aspen, Colo., ski resort manager of 17 years, a Santa Maria, Calif., economic development whiz and a Swiss firm that has manufactured about 2,000 trams in use around the world.

Moreover, Silver Valley’s plans go far beyond the usual glitter of Western tourism staples of skiing, museums and summer fests.

“We’re also pursuing an industrial base,” said Jim Hays, the Californian who is director of the Silver Valley Economic Development Corp.

Hays and a group of bankers are courting several Northeast cabinetmakers, woodworking firms and other consumers of Idaho white pine, promoting the state’s cheap hydroelectric power and low workers’ compensation scale.

And, because of a dearth of low-income housing, the valley has qualified for state and federal construction grants.

“We want to be another Sun Valley without the problems of Sun Valley,” said Hays, alluding to the housing shortage for low-income service employees in the famous south Idaho resort.

Hays, Kellogg Mayor Mervin Hill and others feel that, when the housing grants, industry-relocation campaign and other ventures bear fruit, Silver Valley will have a leg up on other Western mining towns that have turned to tourism successfully.

And there have been several. Bisbee, Ariz., tired of the see-sawing price of copper, developed a 700-species desert botanical garden, cabaret theater, mining museum and other attractions. Crested Butte, Colo., stung by the expense of coal-mining, has become a popular ski resort. Park City, Utah, frustrated by the silver market, became a ski center 20 years ago and now is a year-round resort. And, of course, Aspen, the pioneer of Western resorts, gave up on lead, zinc and silver long ago.

In the Silver Valley, silver mines remain productive, but not always profitable. Zinc, lead and antimony are paying the freight.

“The people of this valley are tired of the boom and bust of mining,” said Peter Forsch, the former Aspen businessman now managing Silver Valley’s new gondola.

Indeed, to help build the $16-million gondola, Kellogg residents in 1986 voted to raise their property taxes.

So far, Forsch and civic leaders are thrilled with the gondola. About 64,000 riders have glided 3,400 feet up Silver Mountain since the 62-car tramway opened June 30, nearly double what was predicted. Motel and campground tax receipts are up nearly 20%. And the gondola’s busiest time, ski season, is still ahead.

In Wallace, where most of downtown is on the National Historic Register, respectable crowds are attending plays a floor below what was one of the town’s best-known brothels.

The year-old, 63-room Wallace Inn has been full most of the summer. A railroad museum and mine tour are popular draws. And a 12-mile amusement train linking Wallace and Kellogg is in the works.

Even the statue and commemorative markers of the valley’s darkest hour--the 1972 Sunshine Mine Disaster, which killed 91 workers--is a tourist stop.

Said Don Springer, who supervises both the Wallace playhouse and a mining museum: “The gondola will keep the wolf away from the door.”