Historical Marker
Atlantic City: Surviving the Bust
Fremont County · Wyoming
The dredge the panel credits with the best payout belonged to the E. T. Fisher Company, which worked Rock Creek from 1933: a dragline with a bucket of a cubic yard and a half feeding a screening and sluicing plant that rode on rails behind it and caught the gold with mercury. Three crews ran it around the clock. In 1934 the Atlantic City district produced 96.5 percent of Wyoming's gold, and Fisher was the largest producer in the state. The operation is credited with more than $700,000 in gold from about ten miles of creek.
What the plaque says
Atlantic City: Surviving the Bust Centrally located on the gold-bearing vein in the area, mines literally surrounded Atlantic City by the fall of 1868. The townspeople soon fostered a thriving business community. In addition to sawmills and blacksmith shops, Atlantic City boasted of beer breweries and one of Wyoming Territory's first public schools. Boom rapidly led to bust and the town faltered for a time. A French capitalist, Emile Granier, revived mining interests in the late 1880's and early 1890's with a short-lived hydraulic mining development centered on Rock Creek. The early 1900's saw another boom as a New York firm constructed the Dexter Mill, a large modern milling and recovery facility in the center of town. It met with failure as well. The greatest pay-out in any of the later booms was during the operation of a dredge on Rock Creek during the Great Depression. Although an exceedingly profitable operation, and a blessing to a depressed local economy, its scars are still visible. Today, Atlantic City remains a community of resilient souls where modern homes coexist with historic log cabins in one of Wyoming's oldest cities.
Where it stands
42.49618, -108.73027 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- South Pass City State Historic Site — 4.2 miThe Carissa lode built the town in a year; the mine outlived the boom by eight decades, and its mill runs again for visitors.
- Sinks Canyon State Park — 17 miA river that vanishes into a limestone cave and comes back a quarter mile on, slower than it should, warmer, and with more water than went in.