Miner’s Delight is one of the least known, most overlooked, and most rewarding ghost towns in this book. It is an unexpected delight.
A camp called Hamilton City began with the discovery of the Miner’s Delight Mine in 1867. When that mine produced a modest bonanza of at least sixty thousand dollars in gold within two years, the camp appropriated the name of the mine. (A note about the apostrophe: The name probably should be “Miners’ Delight,” as it was meant to convey “the delight of miners.” The topographic map eliminates the apostrophe altogether, which implies the U.S. Postal Service did the same thing much earlier. I am choosing “Miner’s” because that is the way it most commonly turns up in historic documents and current accounts.)
One of the wonderful rewards to taking the walk down the path to Miner’s Delight is seeing an abandoned community with something elusive: absolute solitude.
Many of the Miner’s Delight cabins appear unstable, but they are propped up from within.
Miner’s Delight’s population likely never reached a hundred, peaking before 1882. The camp was deserted and in ruins in 1907, when speculators attempted to reopen the Miner’s Delight Mine. The attempt was futile; a 1914 geologist’s report noted that the mine was abandoned and flooded. During the Depression, several cabins were occupied, as in South Pass City and Atlantic City, by unemployed miners hoping to eke out a living.
WALKING AROUND MINER’S DELIGHT
You park your car adjacent to the tiny Miner’s Delight Cemetery, with its solitary marker and three wrought-iron fences, and take a five-minute walk down a well-marked trail to see a true, abandoned ghost town listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eight log cabins, propped up from within and held in a state of arrested decay, are protected by the Bureau of Land Management. Nearby are the remains of a small stamp mill.
The townsite sits amid a grove of aspens, which adds to the charm and solitude of this small treasure.
WHEN YOU GO
Head east and then north for 2 miles on the main road leading out of Atlantic City. Turn right and proceed for 2.8 miles to a sign directing you to the parking area for Miner’s Delight.
Encampment
Encampment lies off the logical route that links the sites in this chapter, but I heartily recommend a side trip.
Early trappers called their summer rendezvous and trading spot with local Indians “Camp Le Grande.” Later, the name was Anglicized to Grand Encampment and finally shortened to Encampment. The town, established in 1898, primarily served the Rudefeha Copper Mine (named after founding partners Rumsey, Deal, Ferris, and Haggarty). A sixteen-mile aerial tramway, completed in 1902, took copper ore, loaded into 985 buckets, from the Sierra Madre to a smelter in Riverside, adjacent to Encampment. Once a town of about two thousand, Encampment faded when a fire at the smelter closed operations in 1906, followed by a nationwide fall in the price of copper.
Today the town features one of Wyoming’s best museums, the Grand Encampment Museum, which comprises fourteen historic buildings, each containing numerous unusual artifacts.
Outside the museum is a rare sight: a series of truncated towers of that Rudefeha tramway. The museum buildings include, among others, a farmhouse, a livery barn, the Palace Bakery and Ice Cream Parlor, the Kuntzman Building with its pressed tin façade, and a fire lookout station towering above the grounds. Inside the interpretive center, look for the unusual Mosely folding bathtub.
Encampment’s business district features the 1904 two-story, brick E & H (for owners Emerson and Henry) Building, a 1902 opera house and town hall, and a handsome stone residence on the northeast corner of Sixth and Winchell streets that was intended to be a brothel. Citizens “invited” the prospective inhabitants to leave town before the structure was completed. It eventually served a more noble purpose as a boardinghouse for teachers.
The picturesque, well-tended Encampment Cemetery is northwest of town on Fourth Street. On one of my visits, deer were keeping the grass nicely trimmed.
The Palace Bakery and Ice Cream Parlor was owned by the Koffman family in about 1900. Upstairs at one point was the Royal Neighbors of America Lodge. The Kuntzman Building was built by George Kuntzman in 1900 for his insurance office.
WHEN YOU GO
Encampment is 57 miles southeast of Rawlins. From Rawlins, take Interstate 80 east to Walcott, Exit 235. Encampment is 42 miles south of that exit on Wyoming Highways 130 and 230.
On your way south, you’ll pass through Saratoga, which features a delightful downtown anchored by the marvelous 1893 Wolf Hotel. The Wolf offers accommodations and gourmet meals that attract diners from miles around.
The Grand Encampment Museum stands on Barrett Street in Encampment. When the highway into town turns right and becomes Sixth Street, turn left on Sixth instead and proceed east to Barrett.