South Pass City Historic Site

The story starts with the Carissa. In June of 1867 prospectors traced gold to a quartz lode on the hill above Willow Creek, and word of the strike pulled miners and merchants into the Sweetwater country in a hurry. South Pass City grew up right below the mine as the supply and social center of the new district, and by 1868 it had been incorporated, the second town in Wyoming Territory to earn that standing.

At its height around 1869 the town held close to a thousand people and something like two hundred and fifty buildings, an instant city of frame storefronts and log cabins in a mountain gulch that had been empty a couple of years before. The Carissa Mine was its beating heart and its curse, for the town rose and fell on the mine's fortunes. When the shallow, easy ore gave out by the early 1870s and deeper mining grew too costly, the crowds drifted away as fast as they had come, and South Pass City slid toward ghost-town quiet.

South Pass City holds a place in national history far larger than its size. In December of 1869 the brand-new Wyoming Territory became the first government in the nation to grant women the right to vote and hold office, and the man who introduced that suffrage bill in the legislature, William Bright, was a South Pass City saloonkeeper and mine official.

The following February the town made history again. Esther Hobart Morris, a local woman, was appointed justice of the peace, the first woman in the country to hold a judicial office. Her very first case was to prosecute the previous justice, who had resigned in protest and refused to hand over the court's records. Over her months on the bench she heard dozens of cases without a single one overturned, quiet proof, in a rough mining camp, that the new law worked. A cabin site in town marks her connection, and Wyoming's nickname, the Equality State, traces straight back to what happened here.

What makes South Pass City special is that it survived. A small population lingered through the lean decades, and mining flared up now and then, but no modern city rolled over the old townsite. In the 1960s Wyoming acquired the town and began preserving it, and today the state historic site cares for more than two dozen original buildings, many restored and furnished with period pieces so that the hotel, saloon, general store, school, and homes feel lived in rather than merely labeled.

The Carissa Mine itself, which ran on and off until it finally closed in the 1950s, came into state hands in the early 2000s, and a major stabilization effort has preserved the headframe, hoist, and stamp mill on the hill above town. Together the restored streets and the standing mine let a visitor read the whole arc of a hardrock gold camp in one place, from the quartz that started it to the parlors of the families who stayed.

It is that completeness that sets South Pass City apart from the lonelier ghost towns of the West. You do not squint to imagine the town that once stood here. You walk right through it.

South Pass City lies southeast of Lander in the southern Wind River Mountains, reached by turning off the highway and following a graded gravel road the last few miles into the gulch. The road is easy in dry weather but can be rough or muddy after rain, and it is not kept up in winter, so aim for a fair-weather day and top off fuel and water in Lander first, since there are no services at the site.

The town opens for the warm season, so check ahead before a long detour. Plan on a couple of unhurried hours to stroll the main street, step inside the restored buildings, and walk up to the Carissa Mine above town. It is high, windy country, so pack layers even in summer. For anyone who loves real history standing where it happened, this is one of the finest restored boomtowns in the West, still holding its ground on Willow Creek.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.