Sawtooth City

The disaster that ended it was fire. Sawtooth City organized at a miners' meeting on November 29, 1879, and the Columbia and Beaver Company built a toll road to Ketchum, a sawmill and a ten-stamp mill that was finished in 1882 and then stood idle for years. The Silver King mine carried the camp from 1886, but the town was nearly empty by 1888, and a fire in the Silver King in 1892 ended large-scale mining. A bitter rivalry ran with Vienna in Smiley Canyon. Mill foundations and the burned footprints of buildings are what remain.

What the plaque says

Sawtooth City Gold discoveries on Beaver Creek in 1879 led to mining activity near here that summer. But major production was delayed until 1886. By 1882, Sawtooth City had three saloons, two restaurants, a meat market, a store, a Chinese laundry, an assay office, a blacksmith shop, two quartz mills, a sawmill, and 80 or 90 construction workers building their town. Four more years went by, though, before miners there worked out a system to process their gold ore. Although 200 miners were employed in 1886, very little could be done after that. One disaster after another led to suspension of work there in 1892. 364 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Galena Summit Overlook — 5.4 mi
  The Salmon River's first miles, seen from an overlook named for the couple who helped keep a mine out of the view.

More markers nearby

• Vienna — 2.6 mi
• Salmon River — 4.3 mi
• Alexander Ross — 6.5 mi
• Galena — 8.7 mi