Ghost Town: Miners Delight, Fremont County, Wyoming

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Site: Miners Delight
Alternate Names: Hamilton City
County, State: Fremont County, Wyoming
Years of Occupation: 1868-1960 (off and on)
Status of Site: Open, BLM Historical Spot
Classification: Class 3 - Abandoned Town
Type: Mining
Remnants: A dozen plus standing buildings and numerous fallen structures.
GPS Coordinate: 42.533° N, 108.680° W
NRHP Reference#: 80004047
Date of Last Visit: October 10, 2013

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Miners Delight (also known as Hamilton City) is a fantastically preserved mining town with roots tracing back to an area gold find in 1868, making it one of Wyoming's earliest cities. News spread about the gold strike and soon a town was popping up to serve the nearby Miners Delight Mine (1/4 mile to the west) staked by Jonathan Pugh and serving other claims in the area as well. For the next hundred years the town would see sporadic rebirth as gold prices spiked and the mines were reactivated. At its height the towns population reached 75, over half of which were miners. The towns last residents left in 1960 as the mines once ago close, this time seemingly for good.

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Miners Delight Cemetery

At its height the town boasted a post office, saloon, butcher, a few dozen resident homes, workshops, mine office, a stamp mill, cemetery and livery. Today the site consists of the cemetery and over a dozen standing buildings and a handful of fallen ones lost to time. The BLM has done a fantastic job propping up and stabilizing the remaining buildings as well as installing the interpretive signs that are present throughout the site. Some of the buildings were moved to the BLM owned land from nearby Fort Stambaugh and the Miners Delight Mine site.

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Looking at downtown Miners Delight

The best time of year to visit is summer and fall, the site sits at a higher elevation and snowfall is quite significant in the late fall through early spring. The roads are very tame to the site, with dry conditions a high clearance 2WD vehicle would have no problem reaching the parking area. Add mud or snow and the roads can get borderline impassible in a wet spring or early fall snow. There is a short walk from the parking area (at the cemetery) to the town site down the hill.

References/Further Reading:
http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/wy/minersdelight.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miner's_Delight,_Wyoming
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/wy0065/

Additional Pictures:

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