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Please click here for - Part One
Miner’s Delight & South Pass City
We received bad news the following morning, Sunday. Mrs. Ted was battling a cold/respiratory infection and it was getting worse. They would not be joining us for the day’s explorations, but stay put in camp with hopes that the illness would improve with rest. We were looking forward to exploring together and having fun, so this was a disappointment. But we did want Mrs. Ted to be aggressive with knocking this bug out.
The remains of a small mining ghost town, Miners Delight, were in the higher country
a few miles to the east. This was our first stop. The cemetery sits in open country on a hill above the town. It is nice for the folks resting here to have a view.
There is an information board at the gate on the walking trail that leads down to the town.
We were delightfully alone as we wandered about the buildings kept in a state of, like Bodie, California, arrested decay. I think it best to keep the narrative to a minimum and allow the photos to tell the story. We thoroughly enjoyed Miners Delight.
Low Larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum)
We drove a large loop on backroads – that’s a bit of a joke, everything is a dirt backroad out here – to explore the area north of the Sweetwater River. It was beautiful rolling high country with expansive vistas, interspersed with aspen groves.
On our wish list was to drive the Atlantic City Hudson Road. It parallels the original route of the Oregon/California Trail, staying to the north of the Trail on higher ground. We turned east on the road and climbed the first grade, encountering slimy mud, echoing what many locals had told us, “This has been the wettest and coldest June we can remember.” With the view from the ridgetop showing continuing ruts in the mud ahead, we found a safe place to turn around and backtracked. We’ll return when it is drier, no need for a mudfest. The road provided us the view so many Oregon Trail travelers wrote about when crossing South Pass – in the middle of the summer seeing snow capped mountain peaks to the north.
We worked our way west through Atlantic City and on to South Pass City, a State of Wyoming Historic Site. It was again threatening rain, so we watched the skies. We decided there was enough of a break to hike the Willow Creek Trail. Two ways of crushing gold bearing rock are displayed along the trail, a recreated water powered arrastra (on the site of the original), and a partly restored ten stamp mill.
I enjoy taking photographs of historic towns and buildings. Again, I’ll allow the photos to tell the story. This link provides a good short history of South Pass City.
You can enter many of the buildings, but most of the artifacts and displays are behind plexiglass barriers. Many of these interior photos were shot through the plexiglass.
One building was set up as a museum with several displays of varied themes.
Wyoming started off as a very progressive territory, allowing women to vote in 1869. Woman’s suffrage did not happen nationally until 1920.
A hotel building.
The thunderstorms and rain kept people away. There were other groups of visitors, but we were glad it was overall very quiet and we could take our time wandering about. We had a very pleasant time at South Pass City.
A little teaser - we return to South Pass in a coming chapter of this adventure.
Rain hit again as we returned to our campsite and it rained off and on most of the night. In the morning we got an update on how Mrs. Ted was doing with her cold and it was time to make decisions.
Our adventure continues, please click here for - Part Three.
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