Adventures in Kirwin, Wyoming

Our first “official” field trip from The Cody took us on a spectacular journey to Kirwin, Wyoming - a small abandoned mining town 38 miles south west of Meeteetse. We’ve decided to take our fans on some adventures around the Big Horn Basin and luckily chose this one first, since it’s going to be impossible to get there soon. The road leading back to this spot is rugged, to say the least, and will most likely become impassable as the winter progresses.

We couldn’t have asked for a more incredible day! We left Cody in 40 degree fall sunshine and ended up in 5 inches of snow with temps requiring winter coats and mittens. Amazing! The road to Kirwin is only a nine-mile stretch from the Trailhead, but takes about 45 minutes in a 4-wheel drive vehicle. It’s hard to imagine miners getting in and out of this desolate country, but they did.



Mine Shaft Building



Kirwin sprang to life after gold and silver were discovered on Spar Mountain in the mid 1880’s by William Kirwin and Harry Adams while on a deer hunting trip. Numerous shafts were dug around this time including, Bryan, Pickwick, Tumlum, Wolf and Galena Ridge mines. Most were operated in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. In 1891 the Wood River Mining Company was formed and by 1897, the first ore was shipped out of Kirwin.

By the early 1900’s, 200 families lived and worked in Kirwin. There was a hotel, two general stores, a sawmill, the headquarters building, a post office, stables and meat storage sheds.  It was a hard life for miners and their families. They used heavy hammers to drill holes for the powder charges and after the rocks were broken up, the miners loaded the ore into cars with shovels and either pushed the cars themselves or used donkeys to pull the cars out of the mines. The ore was transported to Meeteetse every other day by wagon. Later, air and steam powered mechanical drills were used, but these produced clouds of rock dust that got into the miners’ lungs and made for early deaths from miners’ consumption.

The summers were beautiful up the canyon, but winters were brutal. The isolation was overwhelming and there was always the threat of avalanches – known as “white death.” On Feb. 5, 1907, after days of heavy snowfall, an avalanche roared down Brown Mountain killing three people and damaging several buildings and homes. After this devastation, the folks packed up and left, leaving behind cabins, shaft houses and equipment.

Like many early day mining camps, there appeared to be more money made for the investors than what was taken out in ore. The Kirwin mines never found enough gold or silver in quantities necessary to make the mine viable. Not only was there very little ore and no railroad to transport it, but in 1907 there was a national financial panic that drastically cut investment funds.

Today, the stabilization and restoration of Kirwin is shared by the Shoshone National Forest, the State Historical Preservation Office, the Abandoned Mine Land Division of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and many volunteers.

Of the many fascinating stories surrounding this abandoned mining town, my favorite is the one about Amelia Earhart. In 1934, after visiting the Double D Dude Ranch, she asked Carl Dunrud to build her a cabin in this wilderness. Unfortunately, the cabin was never completed because Miss Earhart disappeared on her around-the-world adventure.

Another interesting piece was that Kirwin, unlike other rough and tumble mining towns didn’t have a single saloon or brothel. There was, however, the town fortune teller, Luciel the Palmist and when it was discovered that she was doing more than reading palms, she was asked to pack up and leave the town.

Well, that’s about it for our Kirwin adventure – except that Celes and I saw a huge wolf on the way in and followed some pretty fresh tracks for nine miles. So much for there being no wolves around Meeteetse!