CASPER, Wyo. — The tiny mining town of Kirwin is located less than 40 miles from Meeteetse, but its remote location and aging wood structures make it feel like stepping into an entirely different world.
According to the Wyoming Historical Society, Kirwin was named after its founder, William Kirwin, who discovered gold and silver while hunting deer with his friend, Harry Adams, on Spar Mountain in the 1880s. By the early 1900s, money poured in from the Shoshone Mining and Development Co., Galena Ridge Mining Co. and Wyoming Mining Company.
The town quickly grew to some 200 people at its peak, and featured two general stores, a two-story hotel, a post office and numerous boarding houses, cabins, stables and mining buildings. The work of mining was excruciating, with lives and limbs lost from poorly timed explosions and run-ins with primitive equipment. Miners were lowered underground in buckets, worked under gas lanterns and developed lung diseases from breathing dust.
The boom was also short-lived, thanks to a combination of poor return on investment and an avalanche that killed three people in 1907. The town was acquired by Henry Schnitzel, who held onto its numerous lucrative mining patents before selling it to Carl Dunrud.
Dunrud formed the Double Dee Dude Ranch a few miles from Kirwin, which became a favorite getaway spot for aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and her new husband, George Palmer Putnam. Dunrud was in the process of building Earhart her own vacation cabin in the area when she disappeared during her worldwide flight in 1937. A few remnants of that building exist about a mile from Kirwin, as does some of the dude ranch.
The surviving buildings at Kirwin were eventually abandoned and could have been entirely lost to history if not for a conservation fund that donated the ranch and town to the U.S. Forest Service in the early 1990s. Preservation and stabilization work over the decades have helped keep the area in something of a time capsule.
The town is just several miles from the Wood River campgrounds, but the drive is very slow on a road that is sometimes technical and crosses streams caused by snowmelt from the nearby mountains. Waters usually recede enough by July to possibly drive a standard family SUV, but either ATVs or larger four-wheel-drive vehicles are preferable.
Visitors to the town can expect a short hike and can carefully examine the interiors of many of the buildings. There are open mine shafts, abandoned mining equipment and plenty of dodgy staircases, so smaller children should be supervised.
The ghost town is a gem among many in Wyoming, and gives fascinating insight into almost unimaginably tough livelihoods among stunning natural scenery.
More information on Kirwin and its area can be found at the Wyoming History Society’s website.
