Yankee Fork Gold Dredge

Up the road a piece from Stanley, ID is the Yankee Fork Gold Dredge. Several people had mentioned that we needed to see "The Dredge". Having no idea what they were talking about we happened upon a sign for it and went. I have some pictures but at the moment can't find my camera, hopefully it is someplace here in Seattle. I seem to have a problem keeping track of it.

Anyway, it was rather interesting and disturbing too. (https://yankeeforkdredge.com/)
"In 1939 the Silas Mason company out of New York was looking for a place to invest some money to help out the economy. After doing some surveying they picked Yankee Fork valley as a place to do some dredging for gold. It was estimated that there was 11 million dollars of gold to be had in the 5 1/2 mile claim.." It looked like a huge boat. The disturbing part was what they did to the environment. First they rerouted the river then they used the dredge to dig up all the rocks from the riverbed, analyze them for gold content, extract the gold and then dump all the rocks out the back of the ship and move it forward to do it again. They basically destroyed the entire river valley. One of the guides was a descendent of one of the workmen and shared some stories with us.

Nearby is the Custer Ghost Town. (https://westernmininghistory.com/towns/idaho/cu…) Some of the original buildings are still standing and volunteers had lots of info and history about the town to share. We got old time sarsaparillas which were well appreciated as it was rather warm out. The town included some Chinese workers who lived outside the actual town, segregated. And since they were not included in the US census, they had a separate record of them which they displayed.

We also visited the Stanley Museum. and then spent an afternoon at Red Fish Lake.

Camping nights were on NFS campgrounds next to the Salmon River. Definitely a lovely place to spend a few days.Read more