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| Near Chalis, Idaho, is the Land of the Yankee Fork State Park, where I captured this photo of an old wooden-wheeled wagon. The way the wagon is positioned with the mountains in the background it is easy for me to envision settlers traveling across the West in search of better lives. |
The main buildings at the State Park are closed when I arrive with my parents. Fortunately, they have a fantastic outdoor museum that displays lots of old mining equipment and vehicles that Western settlers used in the 1800s when expanding into this area. For example, these old ore carts also catch my attention. While visiting abandoned mines, I frequently found rails, but the ore carts were often missing. I am fascinated that miners could haul such large equipment deep into the mountains for gold, silver, and lead ore.
Adjacent to the main park structures is the Buffalo Jump, used by Native Americans. Shoshone bison hunters would drive bison over the 36 ft (11 m) cliffs to help make it easier to slaughter them. As I take this picture, I wonder how many animals died here. Unfortunately, this is as close as I am to get as the State Park has the historic site fenced off. I would love to get closer and explore the site in more detail.
A short distance, about a 20-minute drive from the Buffalo Jump, we turn off the highway and head north towards Bayhorse, Idaho. Bayhorse is also part of the State Park. The town site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. The State of Idaho purchased the abandoned community in 2006 and opened it publicly in 2009. Bayhorse is a ghost town of the American West.
In the photo below, the Wells Fargo bank building is in the background, a saloon sits in the middle, and an old house is on the right.
A ghost town is an abandoned village, town, or city, usually one that contains substantial visible remains. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, or uncontrolled lawlessness. In Idaho, there are 29 ghost towns, and most information on them was lost to history. Nearly every state in the U.S. has ghost towns.
Bayhorse was founded in 1877, following the discovery of gold in the surrounding area in 1864. During its peak, > 300 people lived and worked here, supporting the 50 claims around the town. Bayhorse existed primarily to mine silver and lead, with some gold also being produced. More than 6 M oz (170,097 kg) of each silver and copper. An astounding 37 M oz (1,048,932 kg) of lead was also mined in the area, with only 200 oz (5.6 kg) of gold being produced.
The Gilmer and Salisbury stamp mill is the brown building in the middle left of the picture, and the Wells Fargo bank building is on the right. The stamp mill, a facility for crushing ore into small pieces so that it can be processed to extract minerals via smelting or using toxic agents like arsenic or mercury, remained in operation until the 1920s. Most people left Beyhorse after the smelter was lost to a fire in 1889.
On the other side of the creek, I noticed a familiar site: charcoal kilns. These kilns were built in 1888 and operated for one year until the smelter burned down. I am thrilled to see these structures again. I have never seen anywhere else outside of Idaho. There are 10 charcoal kilns in Bayhorse. Unfortunately, only one remains in good condition, hidden in the trees on the left in the picture below. The others are dilapidated and generally in poor condition.
While visiting these old remnants of the American West, I have a similar feeling to seeing other places in the world. As I ponder this, I recall the older Ulster American Folk Park woman asking me if I was an archeologist. At the time, I remember being intrigued by her observation and comment, but I was only a month into my travels. Now, as I reflect on this, she was right. I am interested in understanding how people lived in the past and enjoy decoding the things they left behind.
I am also intrigued by how these patterns keep on surfacing in my travels. It is time time I spend more time understanding this and decyphering what it means for me moving forward.😁
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