{"id":4849,"date":"2012-02-15T16:50:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T23:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=4849"},"modified":"2012-02-15T16:50:48","modified_gmt":"2012-02-15T23:50:48","slug":"car-sales-are-big-business-in-one-rural-idaho-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/02\/15\/car-sales-are-big-business-in-one-rural-idaho-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Car Sales Are Big Business in One Rural Idaho County"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jessica Pupovac \/ NPR StateImpact<\/p>

Click on the map to see Shoshone County's top five employers<\/p><\/div>\n

Shoshone County is known as the Silver Valley because of its long history of metal mining, but mines aren’t the top employer<\/a> anymore.\u00a0 A car dealership is.<\/p>\n

Dave Smith Motors employs about 400 people, according to data from the state<\/a>.\u00a0 Hecla Mining, the operator of the Lucky Friday Mine comes in a close second, with about 300 employees, although that mine is shut down for the next year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Local economic development specialist Vern Hanson says it might be unusual for a county’s top employer to be a car dealership, but it’s been a boon for the local economy. <\/p>\n

“There are more cars on the lot in Kellogg than there are people,” says Mary Kae Repp who does marketing for Dave Smith Motors.\u00a0 Repp says there are typically 2,500 cars on the Dave Smith Motors lot at any one time. The town of Kellogg<\/a> has just over 2,000 people.<\/p>\n

“There are more cars on the lot in Kellogg than there are people”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 -Mary Kae Repp<\/div>\n

The business touts itself as the world\u2019s largest Dodge and Chrysler dealer.\u00a0 Repp says people fly in from all over the country to purchase cars at Dave Smith.\u00a0 The dealership even has four full time shuttle drivers going to the Spokane, Washington airport on a regular basis to pick up customers.\u00a0 It’s about a 70 mile drive.<\/p>\n

Repp says it is remarkable a car dealer of this size is so successful in the rural north Idaho panhandle.\u00a0 She attributes the success to a low-profit business model; selling lots of cars for a smaller profit rather than selling a few cars for a higher profit.<\/p>\n

She says Dave Smith Motors, which opened in 1965, has been an economic driver in the region for at least the last decade.\u00a0 Its 400 employees aren’t just selling cars.\u00a0 The company also has a large support staff for working on titles and contracts, two full service centers, a car wash, a truck-bed liner installation center, an accessories shop, detailers, a tire factory, a sign shop and a tint shop.<\/p>\n

A County in Transition<\/h3>\n
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Jimmy Wayne \/ Flickr<\/p>

A view of Kellogg, Idaho from I-90<\/p><\/div>\n

So how did this car dealer become the biggest local employer? Well, you have to understand the county\u2019s makeup.<\/p>\n

Shoshone County is spread across more than 2,600 acres of densely forested, rugged mountain terrain along the eastern side of Idaho’s panhandle.\u00a0 For outsiders, towns like Kellogg and Wallace might be better known as a place to stop and stretch your legs between Spokane, Washington and Missoula, Montana if you drive along I-90.<\/p>\n

The county’s population is small.\u00a0 Census data estimates<\/a> fewer than 13,000 people live in Shoshone County. The population has been on the decline since at least the 1970s when almost 20,000 people lived there.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate in Shoshone County<\/a> hasn’t been in the single-digits since September 2008.\u00a0 Hanson says it\u2019s a constant challenge to attract new companies to the valley.\u00a0 He says he’s combating a stigma associated with the area being known as a Superfund site<\/a> and because of the landscape, there just aren’t many available open, flat spaces for building.<\/p>\n

Mining Bust<\/h3>\n

“The biggest change was the mines,” Hanson says.\u00a0 “It started with [the closure of] Bunker Hill and it was a domino effect and we lost just about everything.\u00a0 The ones that did remain were down to so few people it really wasn\u2019t a viable occupation.”\u00a0 The Bunker Hill mine<\/a> in Kellogg closed in 1982, taking with it 2,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

“The biggest change was the mines”\u00a0 – Vern Hanson <\/div>\n

The area has also lost a lot of jobs in the timber industry.\u00a0 Hanson comes from a family of loggers, he father and brother were both in the business.\u00a0 His brother is now a truck driver.<\/p>\n

Hanson says with the slow economy, he now focused his time on trying to keep existing businesses from leaving.\u00a0 “That\u2019s about all we can do right now,” Hanson says.<\/p>\n

It’s unclear if or how the mining and timber industries will make a resurgence in the Silver Valley.\u00a0 As commodity prices increase, the likelihood of more mining activity increases.\u00a0 But what’s pretty clear is Dave Smith Motors will continue to carve out its niche in Shoshone County’s economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shoshone County is known as the Silver Valley because of its long history of metal mining, but mines aren’t the top employer anymore.\u00a0 A car dealership is. Dave Smith Motors employs about 400 people, according to data from the state.\u00a0 Hecla Mining, the operator of the Lucky Friday Mine comes in a close second, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":4862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[52,50,133],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}