Gilmore features the largest remnants of a silver and lead mining boom that began in the 1870s and ended in the 1920s in the Birch Creek Valley. Originally known as Horseshoe Gulch, the settlement began as a cluster of cabins near the early diggings in the late 1880s. A stagecoach line connected Horseshoe Gulch to the outside world, and in 1902, the town’s citizens elected to change the community’s name to honor Jack T. Gilmer, one of the owners of the stage company. The U.S. Postal Service approved the name but accidentally spelled it “Gilmore.” Townspeople apparently decided to accept the error rather than fight the federal bureaucracy.
The town was moved down from what is still known as Horseshoe Gulch in 1910 to its present location when the Gilmore & Pittsburgh Railroad—a branch line beginning at Armstead, Montana (now submerged beneath Clark Canyon Reservoir, southwest of Dillon)—arrived in that year. The G&P Railroad was known derisively as the Get off and Push. With the arrival of the railroad, town honoree Jack Gilmer’s stage line was obsolete.
Gilmore’s Pittsburgh-Idaho group of mines (financial backing came principally from Pennsylvanians) continued into the late 1920s, second only in production to the Coeur d’Alene silver mines in northern Idaho (see the Wallace entry, pages 216–223). Gilmore’s prosperity ended when a power plant explosion and resulting fire in 1927 ended large-scale mining after producing $11.5 million in silver and lead. The railroad ceased service, and the rails were sold for scrap in 1940. The post office somehow hung on, perhaps by federal indifference (after all, they got the name wrong in the first place), until 1957.
WALKING AND DRIVING AROUND GILMORE
As you head from the highway up into Gilmore, you will see the old roadbed from the G&P Railroad as you cross it. More than two dozen buildings, ranging from habitable to tumbledown, remain at the town.
At the main intersection in Gilmore, you will be facing the very long, one-story, wood-frame general mercantile, which is covered with ornamental tin. The false front has three messages, the top bleeding into the middle, as they were painted in different years: The top reads “U.S. Post Office.” Halfway underneath is “Gilmore Mercantile,” with “general merchandise” below that. Painted in large letters on the north side of the building’s roof is the town’s name. The store was built by the Ross brothers in 1910, the year the railroad came to Gilmore. (The building has been purchased by the Lemhi County Historic Preservation Committee and the Lemhi County Historical Society and Museum for preservation and restoration.)
Gilmore’s impressive general mercantile should look considerably better than this in the future: The Lemhi County Historical Society intends to restore the ravaged building.
In addition to several log cabins and wood-frame residences is a two-story wood building, now painted red, that served as the automobile repair shop. It stood adjacent to the rail line, where new autos shipped to the Birch Creek Valley could be unloaded and serviced on the spot. The second floor had living quarters.
Up the road beyond the townsite .4 of a mile are several deteriorating log cabins. A large log structure, which might have been the base of an ore hopper, is just beyond. This is Horseshoe Gulch, the original townsite.
Continue uphill on the road beyond the gulch. In .3 of a mile, an unmarked road, definitely not for passenger cars, takes a sharp turn up to the left. This leads in .1 of a mile to the town’s cemetery, which contains several markers in two sections. The prominent grave, a recent addition, is for Dick Moll, who was the unofficial guardian, historian, and chief advocate for the preservation of Gilmore. Moll, called The Gilmore Kid on his marker, died in 2002.
WHEN YOU GO
From the turnoff to the Nicholia Charcoal Kilns, continue northwest on Idaho Highway 28 for 11.8 miles to the turnoff to Gilmore. The town is 1.5 miles west of that turnoff.