Abandoned places in Idaho tell the story of a state that was built on extraction and left to rust when the earth gave out. Idaho's modern history began with gold. In 1860, prospectors hit pay dirt in the Clearwater River drainage, and within two years the Boise Basin was producing more gold than any district in the West. Silver, lead, zinc, and copper followed. Mining camps sprang up in every mountain valley from the Owyhees to the Coeur d'Alenes, boomed for a decade or two, and emptied when the ore ran thin. What they left behind is one of the densest concentrations of ghost towns in the American West. But Idaho's abandonment isn't limited to mining. Mormon pioneer settlements that couldn't survive the harsh winters, railroad towns bypassed by new routes, and logging camps that cut every tree and moved on all contribute to a landscape littered with ruins. Today, Idaho holds more than 62 verified abandoned locations on Urbex Maps, scattered across some of the most rugged and remote terrain in the Lower 48. Many of these sites require dirt roads, river crossings, or multi-hour drives on gravel to reach.
This guide covers 10 of the most iconic abandoned places in Idaho, chosen for their historical weight, physical preservation, and the drama of their abandonment stories. Each entry includes a YouTube video, satellite imagery, and a free GPS coordinate button that saves the location directly to your Urbex Maps profile. No paywall. Just click, sign in, and the spot is yours.
1. Silver City
Silver City is Idaho's most famous ghost town and one of the best-preserved mining towns in the American West. It sits at 6,100 feet elevation in the Owyhee Mountains of southwestern Idaho, about 70 miles southwest of Boise via a 23-mile dirt road that climbs from the Snake River plain into a landscape of sagebrush canyons and pine-covered ridges. Getting there is half the experience: the road is steep, rough, and impassable in winter and early spring.
The town's story begins in 1863, when a party of prospectors discovered gold in Jordan Creek. Within a year, the canyon was swarming with miners. By the late 1860s, the discovery of rich silver ore in War Eagle Mountain shifted the district's focus from gold to silver, and Silver City became the Owyhee County seat. At its peak in the 1870s and 1880s, the town had over 2,500 residents, 75 businesses, a daily newspaper (the Idaho Avalanche), several churches, a school, and a Masonic lodge. The mines produced an estimated $40 million in gold and silver during the district's active years.
The decline came gradually. By 1890, the richest ore bodies were exhausted. The county seat was moved to Murphy in 1934. The last mining operations ceased in the 1940s. But unlike most ghost towns, Silver City was never completely abandoned. A handful of property owners have maintained buildings over the decades, and a small community returns each summer. About 70 original structures still stand, including the Idaho Hotel (built in 1863 and still occasionally open for guests), the Our Lady of Tears Catholic Church, the schoolhouse, and dozens of residences and commercial buildings. The state of preservation is remarkable: many buildings still have original furnishings, fixtures, and signage visible through their windows.
Silver City is accessible from late June through October, weather permitting, via the Silver City Road from State Highway 78 near Murphy. The road requires a high-clearance vehicle and careful driving. There are no services, no fuel, and no cell reception.
2. Bayhorse
Bayhorse is tucked into a narrow canyon on the east side of the Salmon River valley, about 18 miles south of Challis in central Idaho. The town was the center of Idaho's longest-running silver mining district, with operations that spanned from the early 1870s to 1915. At its peak in the early 1880s, Bayhorse had a population of several hundred miners, a smelter, and all the infrastructure of a functioning mountain town.
The Ramshorn Mine was the primary producer, yielding silver, lead, and zinc ore that was processed at the on-site smelter. The charcoal kilns that fed the smelter were built into the hillside above town. But Bayhorse was plagued by problems from the start. Water was scarce in the narrow canyon, limiting both mining and milling operations. A devastating fire in 1889 destroyed much of the town. The rebuilt operation limped along for another two decades before the mines were finally abandoned in 1915, exhausted and unprofitable.
The town sat undisturbed for decades, its dry mountain climate preserving the wooden buildings far better than the humid environments that destroyed ghost towns elsewhere. In the 1990s, the BLM acquired the site and began stabilization work. Today, Bayhorse is an interpretive site managed by the BLM's Challis Field Office. Over 20 structures remain standing, including the assay office, several residences, the Wells Fargo building, a boardinghouse, the original smelter ruins, and the charcoal kilns on the slope above. The buildings contain original artifacts: furniture, tools, bottles, and equipment that tell the story of daily life in a remote mountain mining camp.
Bayhorse is accessible via a gravel road off Highway 75, about 18 miles south of Challis. The road is suitable for passenger vehicles in dry weather. The BLM offers guided tours during summer months, and the site is open for self-guided visits year-round during daylight hours.
3. Bonanza
Bonanza and its neighbor Custer sit a mile apart on the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River in the Salmon-Challis National Forest, about 30 miles southwest of Challis. Both towns were born from the same 1870s gold rush, and their fates were intertwined for decades. But where Custer was partially restored as a historic site, Bonanza was left to decay, making it the rawer and more authentically abandoned of the two.
Gold was discovered on the Yankee Fork in 1870, and by 1877 Bonanza had grown into a settlement of several hundred miners. The General Custer Mine, located between the two towns, was the primary producer. Bonanza served as the commercial hub, with a store, saloon, hotel, and post office. The town also earned a darker reputation: Charles Franklin, a bootlegger, was lynched by vigilantes in Bonanza in 1879 after allegedly poisoning miners' whiskey. The event was one of several acts of vigilante justice that marked the camp's early years.
Gold production on the Yankee Fork peaked in the 1880s and declined steadily through the 1890s and 1900s. Dredge mining in the early 1900s reworked the creek gravels but never revived the towns. By 1911, both Bonanza and Custer were essentially empty. The U.S. Forest Service later acquired much of the surrounding land.
Today, Bonanza is a collection of collapsed and leaning log cabins, foundation outlines, and scattered mining debris along the creek. Unlike Custer, which received stabilization and interpretive signage, Bonanza was largely left alone. Several cabin structures remain partially standing, their log walls tilting and roof beams sagging. The cemetery, on a hillside above town, contains graves from the 1870s and 1880s, some marked with original wooden headboards. The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge, a massive floating dredge that operated from 1940 to 1952, sits in the creek bed between Bonanza and Custer and is open for tours in summer.
Bonanza is accessible via the Yankee Fork Road from Stanley or Challis. The road is gravel and suitable for passenger vehicles in summer.
4. Custer
Custer sits one mile downstream from Bonanza on the Yankee Fork and shares the same gold rush origin story. The General Custer Mine, named for the recently fallen cavalryman, began producing in 1876, and the town of Custer grew up around the mill site. At its peak, the town had about 600 residents, a school, a general store, a saloon, assay offices, and the stamp mill that processed ore from the surrounding claims.
What makes Custer different from Bonanza is preservation. While Bonanza was left to collapse, Custer received attention from the U.S. Forest Service and the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, who stabilized several buildings and developed the site as the Custer Ghost Town Interpretive Site. The Empire Saloon, the schoolhouse, several residences, and the mill buildings have been maintained in their historic condition. Interior furnishings and fixtures are visible, and interpretive panels tell the story of each building and its occupants.
The town was abandoned by 1911, following the same economic trajectory as every Yankee Fork settlement. The easily accessible gold was gone, and the remote location made marginal mining uneconomical. For three decades, the buildings sat empty. A few summer caretakers occupied the site periodically. Then the preservation effort began, giving Custer a second life as a public historical site.
Today, the Custer Ghost Town Interpretive Site is open from Memorial Day through Labor Day. A small museum in the restored schoolhouse displays mining equipment, photographs, and artifacts. The Empire Saloon is one of the most photogenic ghost town buildings in Idaho: a two-story wooden structure with its original false front, bar, and back-bar shelving. The ore processing mill, partially collapsed but still substantial, sits on the creek bank below. The cemetery, shared with Bonanza, is a short walk uphill. The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge sits in the creek bed between the two towns.
5. Burke
Burke is what happens when a mining town is crammed into a canyon so narrow that the main street, the railroad tracks, and the creek all had to share the same 300-foot-wide corridor. The town sits at the head of Burke Canyon in the Coeur d'Alene mining district of northern Idaho, one of the richest silver, lead, and zinc producing areas in the world. The canyon is so tight that the Tiger Hotel, built in 1896, was constructed with a ground floor designed as a railroad tunnel: trains literally ran through the middle of the building.
Burke was founded in the 1880s and grew rapidly alongside the Hercules, Tiger-Poorman, and Hecla mines. The town's history is inseparable from the violent labor wars that wracked the Coeur d'Alene district. In 1892, armed miners fought a pitched battle against company guards and strikebreakers at the nearby Frisco mill, and federal troops occupied the district. In 1899, miners hijacked a train, loaded it with dynamite, and blew up the Bunker Hill concentrator in Wardner, leading to another military occupation. Burke was at the center of both conflicts.
Mining continued through the 20th century, with the Hecla Mining Company operating the Star-Morning mine above Burke until 1991. When the mine closed, the last economic reason to maintain the town disappeared. The population dwindled to nothing. Today, Burke is a canyon of ruins. Collapsed mine buildings, tailings piles, rusting equipment, and the remnants of residential and commercial structures line the narrow canyon floor. The Tiger Hotel, once the town's landmark, burned down. The road into Burke Canyon from the town of Wallace follows the old railroad grade and is paved but narrow. The canyon walls rise steeply on both sides, and the sense of confinement is palpable.
Burke Canyon is accessible by car from Wallace via the Burke Canyon Road. The ruins are visible from the road. Some structures are on private mining claims, so stay on public roads and the established roadway.
6. Rocky Bar
Rocky Bar was the first county seat of Alturas County (now Elmore County) and one of the earliest gold rush settlements in central Idaho. Founded in 1863 after gold was discovered in the nearby mountains, the town grew quickly to a population of around 2,500. By the mid-1860s, Rocky Bar had a courthouse, several hotels, saloons, a Wells Fargo office, and a newspaper called the Mountain Celt. For a brief period, it was the largest town in what would become south-central Idaho.
The gold played out faster than anyone expected. By the 1870s, most of the easily accessible placer deposits were exhausted. Hard-rock mining continued at a reduced scale, but the town shrank steadily. A catastrophic fire in 1892 destroyed many of the wooden commercial buildings on the main street. The county seat was moved to Hailey in 1882, removing Rocky Bar's administrative importance. By the early 1900s, the population was in the low hundreds. The last permanent residents left in the 1960s, though a handful of seasonal cabins are still used by hunters and backcountry enthusiasts.
Today, Rocky Bar is a collection of log cabins, collapsed structures, and mining equipment scattered along a mountain road at about 7,200 feet elevation. Several original buildings remain standing, including a few log cabins with intact roofs and stone chimneys. The cemetery, on a hillside above town, contains graves dating to the 1860s. The setting is beautiful and remote: alpine meadows, dense conifer forests, and the South Fork of the Boise River valley stretching below.
Rocky Bar is accessible via a rough dirt road from the Atlanta Highway (Forest Road 268) southeast of Idaho City. A high-clearance vehicle is required. The road is typically passable from late June through October. There are no services, and cell reception is nonexistent.
7. Chesterfield
Chesterfield breaks the Idaho ghost town pattern. This wasn't a mining camp that boomed and busted. It was a Mormon pioneer settlement in southeastern Idaho, founded in 1880 by families from northern Utah who were seeking farmland. For 40 years, Chesterfield was a thriving agricultural community in the Portneuf River valley of Bannock County, with a school, a church (the Chesterfield Ward meetinghouse), a general store, and neatly laid out streets of homes surrounded by irrigated farmland.
The decline was quiet and slow, the opposite of a mining bust. Young people left for larger towns with better economic opportunities. Bingham County roads improved, making it easier to commute to Bancroft or Soda Springs for work and shopping. The school closed. The store closed. One by one, families moved away. By the mid-20th century, Chesterfield was essentially empty. The buildings remained standing in the dry, cold climate of southeastern Idaho, but no one was using them.
In the 1980s, descendants of the original settlers formed the Chesterfield Foundation to preserve the townsite. The foundation stabilized several buildings, including the meetinghouse (now on the National Register of Historic Places), the Elias Hall residence, and the general store. Other structures, including log cabins, barns, and outbuildings, remain in their unrestored state. The town's layout is remarkably intact: you can walk the original street grid and see the full pattern of a planned agricultural settlement from the homesteading era.
Chesterfield is located about 10 miles east of Bancroft on a county road. The site is open to the public during daylight hours. The Chesterfield Foundation hosts an annual celebration day each summer. There is no admission fee.
8. Placerville
Placerville was ground zero for the Boise Basin gold rush, one of the richest placer gold strikes in American history. In August 1862, a party of prospectors found gold in the creek gravels near what would become Placerville. Within months, thousands of miners flooded into the Boise Basin. By 1863, the basin's various camps, including Placerville, Centerville, Pioneerville, and Idaho City, had a combined population exceeding 16,000, making the Boise Basin the largest settlement in the Pacific Northwest at the time.
Placerville's placer deposits were rich but shallow. Within a few years, the easily accessible gold was gone. Hydraulic mining extended the life of some operations, but by the 1870s the rush was over. Idaho City, a few miles to the northeast, survived as the Boise County seat. Placerville shrank to a shadow of its boom-era self. The population today hovers around 50 people, scattered among a mix of modern residences and historic structures.
What makes Placerville interesting for urban explorers is the surviving architecture. The Henrietta Penrod Museum (in the old Boise Basin Mercantile Company building) preserves artifacts from the gold rush era. Several original log and frame buildings still line the main street, including the Magnolia Saloon site, the old jailhouse, and the Pioneer Lodge (IOOF hall). The Placerville Cemetery, on a hill above town, contains graves of miners from the 1860s. The surrounding hills are pocked with mine tailings, prospect holes, and the remnants of hydraulic mining operations that reshaped entire hillsides.
Placerville is on State Highway 21 (the Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway) between Boise and Lowman. The town is accessible year-round by paved road. The museum is open in summer.
9. Triumph
Triumph sits in the foothills east of Sun Valley, about 8 miles from the ski resort town of Ketchum, in what has become some of the most expensive real estate in Idaho. The irony is hard to miss: a ghost town within shouting distance of multimillion-dollar vacation homes.
The Triumph Mine was discovered in 1883 and produced silver, lead, and zinc from veins in the mountains above the East Fork of the Wood River. The town that grew around the mine reached a peak population of several hundred in the early 1900s. A post office operated from 1884 to 1922, and again from 1926 to 1957. The mine went through cycles of operation and closure, typical of Idaho mining towns, with activity picking up during periods of high metal prices and shutting down when prices dropped or ore quality declined.
The Triumph Mine permanently closed in 1957 when the remaining ore bodies were judged uneconomical. The town emptied quickly. Workers moved to Ketchum, Hailey, and other Wood River Valley communities. The buildings were left standing: miner's cabins, a mill complex, tailings dumps, and the mine portal.
Today, Triumph is a curious sight. The ghost town structures, weathered gray wood and rusting corrugated metal, sit in a valley that is otherwise filled with upscale development. New houses and lodges have been built on the periphery. But the core of the old mining town remains untouched, preserved partly by the property owners and partly by the environmental cleanup of mine tailings that has restricted development on the contaminated ground. The mill ruins, mine buildings, and several cabins are visible from the road. The East Fork of the Wood River runs through the townsite.
Triumph is accessible via the East Fork Road (Forest Road 118) from Ketchum. The road is paved for the first portion and gravel beyond. The townsite is on a mix of private and BLM land.
10. Gilmore
Gilmore sits in the Birch Creek Valley of east-central Idaho, about 40 miles south of Salmon, in a high desert landscape ringed by the Lemhi and Beaverhead Mountains. The town was the center of the Gilmore Mining District, which produced lead and silver from the late 1800s through the 1920s. At its peak around 1910, Gilmore had 600 residents, a railroad connection (the Gilmore and Pittsburgh Railroad), a smelter, a school, stores, and several hotels.
The town's decline was sudden and dramatic. In 1927, the power plant that supplied electricity to the mines exploded, crippling operations. The Great Depression hit two years later, collapsing metal prices and finishing off whatever the power failure hadn't. The railroad, which had never been profitable, ceased operations. By 1930, Gilmore was effectively dead. The post office closed in 1930. The last few families drifted away.
What sets Gilmore apart from many Idaho ghost towns is its preservation and its eerie completeness. The dry, high-altitude climate (about 6,400 feet elevation) has kept wooden structures intact for nearly a century. The schoolhouse still stands, as do several residences, commercial buildings, and the foundations of the smelter complex. The most striking structure is the head frame of the Viola Mine, which rises above the hillside like a skeletal tower. Because the area receives very little traffic, the townsite has a quality of undisturbed stillness that is rare even among ghost towns.
Gilmore is accessible via a gravel road from Highway 28 in the Birch Creek Valley. The road is suitable for passenger vehicles in dry weather. The townsite is on a mix of BLM and private land. The buildings are fragile and should not be entered.
Beyond the List
Idaho's ghost towns number in the hundreds. The Coeur d'Alene mining district in the north, the Boise Basin in the center, the Owyhees in the southwest, and the Salmon River country in the east each hold dozens of abandoned settlements. Beyond mining, abandoned railroad grades, logging camps, homestead ruins, and Cold War military installations add to the total. With 62 verified abandoned locations on the Idaho urbex map, the map keeps growing. The GPS coordinates are free. The roads are rough. The rewards are worth it.
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