Driving 27 miles south of Lander on Wyoming Highway 28, and then taking a gravel road left for roughly less than five miles, you arrive in Atlantic City, a century-old ghost town. Gold miners poured into this district in the late 1860s and, within a few months, created three typical frontier gold camps here — South Pass City, Atlantic City, and Miner’s Delight. Today, Atlantic City can easily claim the title as boom/bust capital of Wyoming. Since its official platting in April 1868, the town has experienced a continuing series of mining booms and busts, all but one tied to the fortunes of gold.
Several miners from South Pass City in 1868 discovered "The Atlantic Ledge"—gold-bearing quartz several feet thick and thousands of feet long. The discovery spawned a boom of free-milling gold that resulted in a population of nearly two thousand in two years.
During the town’s boom, it possessed a brewery, a beer garden, a large dance hall, and an opera house. After three years, the town consisted of a log school and a two-story stone building constructed by J.W. Anthony in which Robert McAuley operated a store. The ninety-foot upper story served as a dance hall where Calamity Jane conducted business. In 1862, Emil Granier, a French engineer, proposed a twenty-mile sluiceway to provide water. The ditch, built with $1,000.00 and three hundred Swedes, passed through miles of hard rock, circled around the town and angled south. Christina Lake, located at the head of the ditch, was dammed to create a vast water supply. Unfortunately, the grade had been laid out with too much slope, leaving the sluices wiped out and water spilling over. The result was a supply of "liquid gold" that had every miner rushing in, creating small bonanzas and heavy whiskey consumption.
Forlorn and defeated, Emil Granier returned to France to explain the project’s failure and to request refinancing. Instead, Granier was jailed, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Despite the Granier ditch failure, Atlantic City made the following additions: Mr. Giessler created a new store in 1898; the Carpenter family created a two-story log hotel in 1900; July 4, 1900 included a rodeo on Main Street; and in 1912, the log church was built which came to be known as "National Shrine."
By 1875, all of the gold had been harvested, and in 1920, all of the mines were shut down. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Atlantic City experienced a small boom as the E.T. Fisher Company built and operated a dredge on the streams near Atlantic City where it took out seven hundred thousand dollars in gold. The two-man operation was comprised of a "traveling mill" mounted on rails. While one man controlled the dredge, the other handled the two-story gold washer, oiling bearings, and watched for nuggets. Along the way they left heaps of rock which are still visible today. Many of the nearby mines re-opened. By the start of World War Il, this short-lived excitement faded: When the government declared gold a non-strategic metal, the mines were forced to close. In their search for metal, scavengers came into the area and dismantled many of the mines in the district.
By the 1950s, Atlantic City was listed as a ghost town. During several winters in the 1950s and early 1960s, only three or four people remained in the town. In 1950, the only remaining business in operation was the Carpenter Hotel— a one-night stay in the cabin was one dollar and meals were fifty cents.
Later in the 1960s, interest in a different metal-iron ore brought hundreds of people to the area when U.S. Steel constructed a large, open pit mine three miles northwest of Atlantic City. Although most of the miners commuted from Lander, several settled in Atlantic City. This and the growing interest in vacation homes made the town slowly grow again. In the 1980s the U.S. Steel mine closed, and with economic hard times throughout Wyoming, most of the people in this community left to find jobs.
Each spring, the eternal hope of the gold mining community grows as geologists, promoters, and would-be investors drift in and out of Atlantic City. The wind of this old gold town always whispers of another boom on its way. Driving 27 miles south of Lander on Wyoming Highway 28, and then taking a gravel road left for roughly less than five miles, you arrive in Atlantic City, a century-old ghost town. Gold miners poured into this district in the late 1860s and, within a few months, created three typical frontier gold camps here — South Pass City, Atlantic City, and Miner’s Delight. Today, Atlantic City can easily claim the title as boom/bust capital of Wyoming. Since its official platting in April 1868, the town has experienced a continuing series of mining booms and busts, all but one tied to the fortunes of gold.
In 1867, Atlantic City’s population approached 300. When W.H. Jackson took his 1870 photograph of Atlantic City, the town sported a three block main street with business buildings on both sides and heavily populated residential areas on the hillsides and in Beer Garden Gulch.
Several miners from South Pass City in 1868 discovered "The Atlantic Ledge"—gold-bearing quartz several feet thick and thousands of feet long. The discovery spawned a boom of free-milling gold that resulted in a population of nearly two thousand in two years.
During the town’s boom, it possessed a brewery, a beer garden, a large dance hall, and an opera house. After three years, the town consisted of a log school and a two-story stone building constructed by J.W. Anthony in which Robert McAuley operated a store. The ninety-foot upper story served as a dance hall where Calamity Jane conducted business. In 1862, Emil Granier, a French engineer, proposed a twenty-mile sluiceway to provide water. The ditch, built with $1,000.00 and three hundred Swedes, passed through miles of hard rock, circled around the town and angled south. Christina Lake, located at the head of the ditch, was dammed to create a vast water supply. Unfortunately, the grade had been laid out with too much slope, leaving the sluices wiped out and water spilling over. The result was a supply of "liquid gold" that had every miner rushing in, creating small bonanzas and heavy whiskey consumption.

Forlorn and defeated, Emil Granier returned to France to explain the project’s failure and to request refinancing. Instead, Granier was jailed, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Despite the Granier ditch failure, Atlantic City made the following additions: Mr. Giessler created a new store in 1898; the Carpenter family created a two-story log hotel in 1900; July 4, 1900 included a rodeo on Main Street; and in 1912, the log church was built which came to be known as "National Shrine."
By 1875, all of the gold had been harvested, and in 1920, all of the mines were shut down. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Atlantic City experienced a small boom as the E.T. Fisher Company built and operated a dredge on the streams near Atlantic City where it took out seven hundred thousand dollars in gold. The two-man operation was comprised of a "traveling mill" mounted on rails. While one man controlled the dredge, the other handled the two-story gold washer, oiling bearings, and watched for nuggets. Along the way they left heaps of rock which are still visible today. Many of the nearby mines re-opened. By the start of World War Il, this short-lived excitement faded: When the government declared gold a non-strategic metal, the mines were forced to close. In their search for metal, scavengers came into the area and dismantled many of the mines in the district.
By the 1950s, Atlantic City was listed as a ghost town. During several winters in the 1950s and early 1960s, only three or four people remained in the town. In 1950, the only remaining business in operation was the Carpenter Hotel— a one-night stay in the cabin was one dollar and meals were fifty cents.
Later in the 1960s, interest in a different metal-iron ore brought hundreds of people to the area when U.S. Steel constructed a large, open pit mine three miles northwest of Atlantic City. Although most of the miners commuted from Lander, several settled in Atlantic City. This and the growing interest in vacation homes made the town slowly grow again. In the 1980s the U.S. Steel mine closed, and with economic hard times throughout Wyoming, most of the people in this community left to find jobs.
Each spring, the eternal hope of the gold mining community grows as geologists, promoters, and would-be investors drift in and out of Atlantic City. The wind of this old gold town always whispers of another boom on its way. Driving 27 miles south of Lander on Wyoming Highway 28, and then taking a gravel road left for roughly less than five miles, you arrive in Atlantic City, a century-old ghost town. Gold miners poured into this district in the late 1860s and, within a few months, created three typical frontier gold camps here — South Pass City, Atlantic City, and Miner’s Delight. Today, Atlantic City can easily claim the title as boom/bust capital of Wyoming. Since its official platting in April 1868, the town has experienced a continuing series of mining booms and busts, all but one tied to the fortunes of gold.
In 1867, Atlantic City’s population approached 300. When W.H. Jackson took his 1870 photograph of Atlantic City, the town sported a three block main street with business buildings on both sides and heavily populated residential areas on the hillsides and in Beer Garden Gulch.
Several miners from South Pass City in 1868 discovered "The Atlantic Ledge"—gold-bearing quartz several feet thick and thousands of feet long. The discovery spawned a boom of free-milling gold that resulted in a population of nearly two thousand in two years.
During the town’s boom, it possessed a brewery, a beer garden, a large dance hall, and an opera house. After three years, the town consisted of a log school and a two-story stone building constructed by J.W. Anthony in which Robert McAuley operated a store. The ninety-foot upper story served as a dance hall where Calamity Jane conducted business. In 1862, Emil Granier, a French engineer, proposed a twenty-mile sluiceway to provide water. The ditch, built with $1,000.00 and three hundred Swedes, passed through miles of hard rock, circled around the town and angled south. Christina Lake, located at the head of the ditch, was dammed to create a vast water supply. Unfortunately, the grade had been laid out with too much slope, leaving the sluices wiped out and water spilling over. The result was a supply of "liquid gold" that had every miner rushing in, creating small bonanzas and heavy whiskey consumption.
Forlorn and defeated, Emil Granier returned to France to explain the project’s failure and to request refinancing. Instead, Granier was jailed, tried, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Despite the Granier ditch failure, Atlantic City made the following additions: Mr. Giessler created a new store in 1898; the Carpenter family created a two-story log hotel in 1900; July 4, 1900 included a rodeo on Main Street; and in 1912, the log church was built which came to be known as "National Shrine."
By 1875, all of the gold had been harvested, and in 1920, all of the mines were shut down. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Atlantic City experienced a small boom as the E.T. Fisher Company built and operated a dredge on the streams near Atlantic City where it took out seven hundred thousand dollars in gold. The two-man operation was comprised of a "traveling mill" mounted on rails. While one man controlled the dredge, the other handled the two-story gold washer, oiling bearings, and watched for nuggets. Along the way they left heaps of rock which are still visible today. Many of the nearby mines re-opened. By the start of World War Il, this short-lived excitement faded: When the government declared gold a non-strategic metal, the mines were forced to close. In their search for metal, scavengers came into the area and dismantled many of the mines in the district.
By the 1950s, Atlantic City was listed as a ghost town. During several winters in the 1950s and early 1960s, only three or four people remained in the town. In 1950, the only remaining business in operation was the Carpenter Hotel— a one-night stay in the cabin was one dollar and meals were fifty cents.
Later in the 1960s, interest in a different metal-iron ore brought hundreds of people to the area when U.S. Steel constructed a large, open pit mine three miles northwest of Atlantic City. Although most of the miners commuted from Lander, several settled in Atlantic City. This and the growing interest in vacation homes made the town slowly grow again. In the 1980s the U.S. Steel mine closed, and with economic hard times throughout Wyoming, most of the people in this community left to find jobs.
Each spring, the eternal hope of the gold mining community grows as geologists, promoters, and would-be investors drift in and out of Atlantic City. The wind of this old gold town always whispers of another boom on its way.

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