It must have been a welcome oasis for travelers jostled and dirty from the long dry wagon ride across the Wyoming desert to finally get to South Pass City, Wyoming. It was bustling mining town by 1868 located on the Oregon Trail Lander Cut-Off, those that came here sought respite, something to eat and drink, and perhaps even to stay to try their hand at finding gold too and striking it rich.
The site of the largest gold boom, and bust, in Wyoming was a happening place back then. Several saloons, gaming parlors, and secret brothels fed the seedier needs of the town, but there were hotels, stores, butcher shops, blacksmiths, assayers, dance hall, banks and horse boarding barns as well. After all, back then with some 3000 people, it was Wyoming’s second largest town!
Only a mere few years later the regional Sweetwater Mines went bust, but the town managed to stay continually populated since then and now is magnificently restored to its once glorious past. In fact, it is among the best and most complete “ghost towns” we have encountered in our travels, being the largest state historic site in Wyoming.
For a modest $5 fee you can walk the boardwalks and dirt streets of this picturesque city and view the lovingly restored furnishings inside each of the buildings. One does feel transported back to the time when US wasn’t even a century year old yet and Native Americans were more numerous than European settlers.
The historic Carissa stamp mill mine just a half mile down the road tells of a time when gold was still being pulled from the surrounding hills. The unproductive Wolverine Mine, within walking distance of the town, can still be entered replete with ore cart and rails. A sign of this once gold rich region can be found in the museum where a $5 gold piece found under one of the cabin floor restorations is displayed.
This is the town where Esther Hobart Morris lived. Esther was the very first woman Justice of the Peace in the world appointed in February 1870. Though a strong supporter of woman’s suffrage, she is wrongly linked to Wyoming’s first in the nation suffrage legislation granting women the right to vote in December of 1869, though she benefited from this by being able to submit her name for the position and getting selected by the governor, therefore being the first woman to hold public office!
One curious discovery we made was at the butcher shop which had a freezer to store the meat in! What? Where did they get the ice from? On our trip back later, we discovered on a road pull off “The Ice Slough”. It seems Mormon travelers on the Oregon Trail and later other emigrants each discovered permafrost ice under a marshy area. Digging down a few feet in the dirt, they would find and harvest the ice. This was a welcome source for making cold drinks and preserving food along the way. Yes, ice in the Wyoming “desert” in early summer!
The rear of the jail is all business with four jail cells. With the wooden construction, the jails were actually cool inside, not hot, even though they had no windows. This is where the phrase “being thrown in the cooler” actually originated.
As you scroll through the pictures, read through the captions as there are some interesting historical tidbits embedded in my remarks. Enjoy!
As usual leave your comments and feedback below.
8 replies on “South Pass City, Wyoming”
My goodness. The restorers went to a lot of work to include detail (beer on the table and bar, eggs by the stove, bacon in the pan, and so on). Not sure how they keep control of settling dust.
A bit sad how everything is now “ghost”. And does make one appreciate modern homes and buildings. Yup, a nice way to step back in time, but thankfully after a day of walking among the echoed-past to then have the luxury of returning to the modern era.
I see it as living history, so not sad, but glorious in restoring what once was, frankly better then it probably ever was. Somebody must do regular dusting!
It’s always fun to see the period furnishings! You took some great pics. I liked the kitchen where a good meal could be cooked😃
Thank Janet, I liked the kitchen picture as well. It really felt like the family had just stepped out the door!
Nice, Ethan! Looks like a fun place to visit. I enjoyed your comments.
I was fascinated by the coolness you describe inside the wooden jail cells. I had recently noticed this same phenomenon during our current monster July heat wave vis-à-vis our wooden shed out back. It’s usually cooler in there—notably cooler—at least in the evening when I enter to retrieve the lawn sprinklers. Mysterious, if you ask me.
I am currently reading Mark Twain’s “Roughing It.” He, too, talks about a place along their stagecoach route where you could dig ice out of the side of a hill in the middle of sweltering August weather, just six inches below the surface. Amazing.
Thanks Joe. “Roughing It” includes travelling on the Overland trail through Virginia Dale station (here in Larimer County and on the Cherokee Trail I am historically tracing) and Twain’s meeting of Jack Slade, a station manager/scallywag I have written about with a notorious past. Unfortunately it’s a story I can’t submit to Colorado Life as it has already been told there, but I hope to rewrite and submit my story to the Oregon-California Trail Association journal along with a recent visit I made to the station. I will post the story in this blog as well once it is done!
South Pass City is a hidden gem and your blog tells its story well. You were really close to where I spent a summer as a goat wrangler in Atlantic City. I was just in the Red Desert a few weeks ago. Did you go there? It is just south of the Oregon Buttes.
Thanks Betty. We went through Atlantic City as well and I will post another blog on that ultimately. How coincidental, that goat wrangling must have been a fun experience. We didn’t make it to the Red Desert, but hope to make it up there the next time we are that neck of the woods. BTW we recently made friends with a neighbor of yours in Redstone Canyon, Dr. John Fitch. I told him I know you and he mentioned he had met you before.