Historical Marker
The Carissa Mine: Cycle of Boom and Bust
Fremont County · Wyoming
The long mill at the center of the site was built for another town. It began in Atlantic City as the Dexter Mill, a twenty-stamp mill with a cyanide plant whose company went bankrupt, and it was moved here in 1929, one of the facilities the panel says were brought to the site. Accounts of the mine's last closing differ, 1949 on the panel and 1954 elsewhere. Restoring the mill meant clearing arsenic, lead and mercury vapor, work by the state's abandoned-mine program that won a national reclamation award in 2024.
What the plaque says
The Carissa Mine: Cycle of Boom and Bust Thousands rushed to the South Pass area following the find of substantial gold deposits at the Carissa Mine in 1867. As the boom gained steam, the Carissa sat at the center of mining development, serving as the primary economic force for South Pass City. Eventually, the gold played out and the Carissa's mining technology reached its limit. As a result, the Carissa closed, contributing to the gold bust and the decline of South Pass City in the 1870s. Modern advances in mining technology and an influx of new money made it possible for the Carissa to reopen in the early 1900s, bringing with it a renewed boom. A large project that modernized the Carissa during the winter of 1928-29 created additional facilities that were both newly built and moved to the site. The Carissa continued to open and close with new owners, new money, fluctuating gold prices, and new technologies. It closed for the last time in 1949 and the State of Wyoming acquired it in 2003 designating it as a historic site.
Where it stands
42.47467, -108.79702 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- South Pass City State Historic Site — 0.5 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 — 18 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.