North of Sun Valley on highway on 93 west of the Salmon River a few miles is Bay Horse, a town that was almost a ghost town before it got started. Hopes for another gold mine to rival the mine at Leesburg faded quickly when only a small amount of gold was found. In the process, however, a rich vein of silver was discovered and Bay Horse had its start in the early 1870s. The most productive years were in the 80s and 90s. Operations continued until 1915 and then were shut down and the town abandoned. Today charcoal ovens that were used to make charcoal for the smelter and old buildings can be found along the dirt main street of Bay Horse.
Bay Horse got its start 1864 when a few small gold veins were found and a small camp began. Though there are several tales of how the settlement came by its name, the most popular is when area prospectors met a miner who had been digging between Clayton and Challis with the help of two bay horses. The man told the others that he had discovered rich mining opportunities up a steep canyon on the north side of the Salmon River. Because the other prospectors couldn’t remember the man’s name, they simply referred to him as the “man with the bay horses” and the name stuck.
Though prospectors continued to comb the area for the next several years, finding small amounts of gold, it wasn’t until 1872, that the Bay Horse area really began to attract numerous miners when three men by the names of W.A. Norton, Robert Beardsley and J.B. Hood discovered a rich vein of silver. Robert Beardsley and his brother soon started the Beardsley Mine which overlooked the mining camp. When a prospector named Tim Cooper found another rich silver vein, he started the Ramshorn Mine. Other mines soon followed and within months, men, machinery and cabins quickly flooded the area. The size of the mining camp increased again in 1877 when hard rock mining began for silver and lead. By the following year, the mine was operating on a large scale, with numerous tunnels spread throughout the area. A stamp mill and smelter were completed in 1880.
Bay Horse’s peak years were during the 1880’s and 1890’s, when the hillsides were dotted with cabins and the town included numerous saloons, boarding houses, assay offices, banks, a stone Wells Fargo building, a post office, six beehive kilns to make charcoal for the smelters, several ore and timber mills, and two cemeteries. The town’s population reached a high of about 300 residents.
The Ramshorn Mine remained productive until 1888, at which time other mines were also declining. By 1896, the beehive kilns were abandoned and in 1889 the town was struck by a fire which destroyed several buildings. Over the next decade more mines closed and people began to leave the area. By 1915, all mining operations had ceased and Bay Horse had become a ghost town.
In the next several decades, mining operations were revived periodically for short periods, the last time in 1968. Over the years, the Bay Horse Mining District was one of the longest running silver and lead producers in Idaho.
