Hamilton City

Ghost towns dot the landscape of the United States, including Hamilton City, Wyoming, which is also known as Miner’s Delight. The town is located in Fremont County, on the southeastern tip of the Wind River Range. Miner’s Delight was in a prosperous area during the mining boom in the American West in the second half of the 19th century. It was actually a “sister city” of Atlantic City and South Pass City, however they are more well known and have fared better that Miner’s Delight. Nevertheless, a few buildings still stand today as a reminder of an era in Wyoming’s past history.

Like most western mining towns, Miner’s Delight went through several boom-bust periods. With the boom-bust periods came corresponding increases and declines in its population. In 1868, gold was in the area, and by 1870, at the height of the mine’s operations. At that point, the population in Hamilton City was 75, forty of whom were miners. The original boom of mining activity “busted” from 1872 to 1874. Then, by the 1880s a new era of economic prosperity had dawned. There were smaller booms in 1907 and in 1910, and even during the Great Depression. The town was inhabited as late as 1960. By 2015, there were no residents in the town.

Jonathan Pugh founded the Miners Delight mine, which was located about a quarter mile west of the town then known as Hamilton City. The normal boom and bust periods followed, eventually leading to the mine completely shutting down in March 1882. The mine was not used again until after the turn of the 20th century. Then, two brief boom periods in 1907 and in 1910, were in relation to mining operations.

There was one famous incident involving Miner’s Delight which occurred there in March 1893. The incident was widely covered in the press at the time, which was in Cheyenne and was read throughout Wyoming. It came to be known as “the brass lock service mystery.” The postmaster of Miner’s Delight, James “Jimmy” Kime had attempted to ship eight registered letters via the Rawlins and Northwestern’s line’s Lander-to-Rawlins stagecoach to the Postmaster in Rawlins using the “brass lock service.” The Post Office’s “brass lock service” utilized canvas pouches, which were locked with brass locks. The only persons that had a key were the Postmasters along the stage line. When Kime’s pouch reached its destination in Rawlins some 120 miles to the southeast, however, the postmaster there discovered that someone had cut the pouch and stolen all the registered letters. The crime was unheard of

The US Postal inspectors investigated the matter for many months. During that time, a number of other related thefts of various valuables on the line from the locked pouches occurred. Finally, they arrested Postmaster John Gatlin of the Myersville Station near today’s Jeffrey City, Wyoming, along with his wife Stella. The couple was tried in Laramie City and the trial into the Fall of 1893. At that point, charges against John Gatlin were dropped, after Stella Gatlin confessed to stealing the items, due to what she claimed to be her illness of kleptomania. Her affidavit stated that “she had struggled for years to overcome the mania, while keeping it a secret from her husband.” On November 25, 1893, the jury found Mrs. Gatlin guilty. Two days later, she was taken to the Laramie Prison, where she was registered as Prisoner #150, the first woman to be imprisoned there after being convicted of a federal crime in Wyoming. Following a period of “good conduct” she was released early in December 1894, and following her departure, prison officials added a special new wing exclusively for women, with individual cells and a toilet.

Today, the ghost town at Miner’s Delight which eventually went by its nickname, stands as a testament to the passage of time and provides historians and tourists with a peek at early Wyoming life and the gold mining culture. There are still seventeen structures, including seven cabins, one saloon, one meat house, one shop or barn, one shaft house, one pantry, one cellar, three privies, and a corral on the property. All of the buildings are constructed of logs or unfinished lumber.