Bayhorse park preserves historic town

Quiet. Don’t disturb the ghosts in this town.

The smell of sage and the sound of rushing water awaken the senses while driving up the well-maintained, twisting 4-mile gravel road to Bayhorse, an old mining town about 14 miles southwest of Challis, Idaho, in the Salmon-Challis National Forest.

Winding through a dry canyon with bare, rocky cliffs above, the road approaches the town with weathered wood buildings on the right. Some of them are in better shape than others. The most noticeable structure is the large, well-preserved mill building. Built on a steep slope comparable to the old wooden mines in Silver Valley near Kellogg, the eyes quickly scan below to a cluster of buildings that are the remains of a small town. No one lives there now, and the town of Bayhorse has been preserved and protected as a historical Idaho State Park.

Historical it is. It is one thing to read about Idaho’s mining history and quite another to actually walk through an old mining town. The street is narrow, dusty and rough. The homes don’t look very comfortable. They are small but functional. The hotel has two stories, the rooms look very small. There are a few homes, now without roofs, built from local rocks into the hillside. Yet, the rock-sided homes and some of the mine buildings show true craftsmanship as if they were constructed by experienced masons. In fact the rockwork could be described as beautiful.

It had to be an ordeal just getting there while standing among these buildings clustered in the barren, dry, steep, rocky canyon still isolated in east-central Idaho.

The town’s people had to build shelter, find food and carry in mining tools. Even if they found ore, it would have to be shipped out the same way they had come in. They persevered, found good ore and built a town below the mill where the ore was crushed and concentrated. The mining company developed a way to crush and grind the ore and a small smelter to recover the silver.

But in the end the logistics of transportation of food and equipment into the isolated town and taking the ore out proved to be too expensive in the long run. Bayhorse died a slow death as the economic realities became obvious. The original prospector’s name has been lost over time, but his two bay horses haven’t. He told others of an outcropping with silver and lead, and they marked the creek he had worked his way down. Later, they came back to that creek that they called Bayhorse, and ore was eventually found up the creek in the rugged canyon. Word got out about their find and a rush occurred with miners, businessmen and outfitters showing up and creating a small town with a population of 300 to 500.

The years of 1882 into the 1890s were the best when $10 million of minerals, in the form of silver and copper, were extracted from the area. A few workers lingered into the 1900s, as ore concentration technology improved and the town experienced a series of small revivals only to die again. The private property was gated and the public did not have access.

In 2006 the area became an Idaho State Park. The toxic area at the site was covered with soil and the buildings fenced off to create a safety zone. A parking lot was constructed over a contaminated area and interpretive signs provide the interesting history of many of the buildings.

The buildings resonate from another time. There was a time when snow blocked this place for months at a time. Miners were trapped in the area and had to survive on their own during the severe winter storms and cold. There is no doubt, after visiting the town, that only the toughest and most tenacious individuals could make this their home. Who knows, maybe a ghost or two remain to watch over the town at night. Here is a place to explore only during the day.

Bayhorse is as isolated as it sounds. The destination is a day’s drive one way. A good location for an overnight stay is Salmon, Idaho.