South Boise Historic Mining District

The South Boise Historic Mining District, in Elmore County, Idaho and including Rocky Bar, Idaho, is a historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. It included eight contributing buildings and a contributing site on 8,640 acres (35.0 km²), or about a ten square mile area.[1]

South Boise Historic Mining District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Rocky Bar in 2012
Nearest city	Rocky Bar and, Idaho
Coordinates	43°41′31″N 115°15′54″W
Area	8,640 acres (35.0 km^2)
NRHP reference No.	75000629[1]
Added to NRHP	December 30, 1975

It is located in the Boise National Forest and the Sawtooth National Forest..

It includes the ghost town of Rocky Bar and a good part of a large basin in which there was a great amount of gold mining.[2] Rocky Bar has a historic cemetery, which among other graves has the grave of Idaho's territorial governor (acting) Clinton DeWitt Smith, whose death in Rocky Bar effectively halted governance of the territory.[2]

It includes Spanishtown, a few miles from Rocky Bar on Elk Creek, with similar utilitarian structures.[2]

It includes the remains of a number of gold mines, some with remains of structures. Mining rose in 1865, then eventually peaked and declined in the 1890s.[2]

References

1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
2. Merle Wells (September 17, 1974). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: South Boise Historic Mining District". National Park Service. Retrieved December 27, 2019. With accompanying 11 photos from 1972-75