Bayhorse Mining Ghost Town

Yesterday, August 6, 2017 we went to the Bayhorse mining Ghost Town for the day.  We had several choices of Ghost Towns to try and decided on this one because it was the closest to us.  The town was located about 4 miles off the main road on a narrow dirt road that climbed into the hills and mountains.  The town is now owned by the state, which bought it in 2006.  They have made a few road and parking improvements but not many.  This mining town was established in late 1864 and continued to operate until sometime in the 1920's.  They mined mostly copper and silver here.  It was costly to ship the ore to Utah for refinery operations and it had to be put on pack mules and then transported to the wagon train and carried 345 miles.  This cost so much some of the miners just gave up their claims and left.  Other stayed and tried to make improvements in the process to make it cheaper to transport the ore, but eventually the silver and copper markets dropped and it was not worth the cost of transportation.  So, hence the ghost town of the twentieth century.

 Some of the photos that you will see here shows the smoke from the forest fires around Washington, Oregon and Canada that has drifted into this area.  A couple of days the smoke was so bad that you could not see the Sawtooth Mountains.  We have not been in the areas where the fires were burning but some locations of the fire we have just left. 

Hotel
Log Cabin

Jail with thick walls

Residence which had a second story added later

Smoke covered mountain

Only block building which has lasted for a long time.  Was a Wells Fargo building

Bayhorse Mill where the ore was carried to the top and then gravity carried it down to be crushed.


Guess What

Haven't seen one of these in years

Old Truck body

Charcoal Kilns supplied the fuel for the smelters

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