Gold Mines

Rocky Bar, the largest of the camps, was founded in December 1863 and grew past 2,500 people. It was the seat of Alturas County from 1864 to 1882 and the first seat of Elmore County when the county was created in 1889, and the acting territorial governor, Clinton DeWitt Smith, died there, which for a time left the territory without a working government. The town has had no permanent population since the 1960s. Some 8,640 acres of the basin around it are on the National Register as the South Boise Historic Mining District.

What the plaque says

Gold Mines More than a century ago, Rocky Bar, Happy Camp, and a number of other South Boise mining towns flourished in a remote mountain wilderness 30 miles northwest of here. Discovered early in 1863, they were so hard to get to that they could not be worked successfully for more than 20 years. But wealthy investors from New York and London finally put up enough capital that large mills and underground tunnels produced more than 6 million dollars. That gold now is worth more than 120 million. 400 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Goodale's Cutoff — 1.9 mi
• Castle Rock — 1.9 mi
• Toll Gate — 16 mi
• Bannock War — 21 mi