South Pass City: Wyoming's Biggest Gold Boom and Bust

The panel's numbers run ahead of the record. It dates the first claims to 1868, but Lewis Robison and Joshua Terry located the Carisso ledge, the later Carissa, on June 27, 1867. Its perhaps 3,000 people in 1869 meet a marshal's census that year counting 1,517 for the whole mining area, and the federal census of 1870 found 1,166. The rush also ebbed sooner than the panel allows: in April 1868 the Sweetwater Mines newspaper reported South Pass City nearly emptied by talk of new finds in the Bighorn Mountains.

What the plaque says

South Pass City: Wyoming's Biggest Gold Boom and Bust Emigrant travelers on their way west likely discovered small amounts of gold in the 1840's, but it took until 1868 for the first mining claims to be staked. Word of the new gold rush spread and the summer of 1868 brought an influx of people from every corner of the globe to partake in the bonanza. A torrent of mining activity followed for the next several years. In 1869 South Pass City, with perhaps 3,000 people, was Wyoming Territory's second largest town. Every boom ends, and by the early 1870's, the local mining districts collectively known as the Sweetwater Mines, had passed their zenith. A small handful of hardy hangers-on remained in South Pass City through the years. Later booms, fueled by outside investment capital, kept the embers of civilized living and a connection with the larger world aglow. Today, South Pass City is among Wyoming's smallest continuously inhabited towns and is also home to its largest State Historic Site.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• South Pass City State Historic Site — 0.5 mi
  The 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 — 18 mi
  A 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.

More markers nearby

• The Carissa Mine: Cycle of Boom and Bust — steps away
• South Pass and South Pass City — 1.4 mi
• Atlantic City: Surviving the Bust — 3.7 mi
• The Atlantic City Project: The Iron Ore Boom and Bust — 4.0 mi