Wardner, just above Kellogg, gets its namesake from an entrepreneur by the name of James Wardner. He moved from Murray, a small community located on Prichard Creek, where he operated a grocery store and quickly became partners in the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mines. The cabins that sprang up for the living quarters near the mines became known as the town of Wardner. Eventually James Wardner sold out his interest and moved on to Fairhaven, Washington. Later he moved to Canada and started mining and logging where the town of Wardner, B.C., was named after him.

 
In 1899, as part of a continuing struggle between mine workers and mine owners, the Western Federation of Miners' demanded that only union workers be hired. The owners refused. A Bunker Hill Company mine at Wardner, Idaho, was dynamited, and President William McKinley responded by sending in soldiers to round up thousands of miners and confine them in specially built "bullpens.".