Former Kirwin residents recall mining town's heyday
LORI VAN PELT Star-Tribune correspondent | Posted: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 12:00 am
KIRWIN - At 9,600 feet in the Absaroka Mountains near Meeteetse, this abandoned mining town at one time sparked dreams of gold and riches for old-time miners. It also offered pleasant solitude for latter-day celebrities, including famed pilot Amelia Earhart.
For the past eight years, the Meeteetse Museum District has sponsored an annual tour of the area, which was acquired by the U.S. Forest Service in the 1990s. Trekkers caravan by four-wheel-drive vehicles to arrive at the town site, about 38 miles from Meeteetse. Along the way, vehicles cross the Wood River and travel up steep, scenic mountain grades, amid grand peaks rising as high as 13,000 feet.
"We like to share our history, friendliness and simple, quiet, peaceful way of life," said Paige Paisley, Meeteetse Museum District operations manager, who organized this year's tour on Saturday. "It's a great opportunity for us to have speakers and hear about Kirwin."
About 100 people attended this year's excursion, which included talks by Richard and Jim Dunrud, whose father, Carl Dunrud, built the Double D Ranch, a dude ranch five miles below Kirwin, in the 1930s. One of their most famous guests was Earhart, who stayed at the ranch with her husband, George P. Putnam, in 1934. The couple asked the elder Dunrud to build a vacation cabin for them in the area.
"Mom said Amelia enjoyed the restless sound of the creek," Richard said. He was 4 years old at the time of her visit, and brother Jim only 2, when Earhart stayed in a one-room cabin near Jojo Creek.
Her hopes for the vacation cabin, which was located about a mile from Kirwin near Mount Sniffel and high above the Wood River, were unrealized. Dunrud had begun construction and had four walls nearly halfway up when the famous aviatrix disappeared in 1937 during an attempt to fly around the world in a Lockheed Electra. Today, only a few logs and the outline of the foundation remain.
The Dunrud brothers shared some of their memories of their childhood near Kirwin. Jim Dunrud says his father owned the Double D and surrounding area from 1931 through 1959. He recalls the now-deserted assay office at the Kirwin town site containing vials and mortar and pestle and other equipment. The building, he says, "had a counter with chemicals, a blast furnace, and a spring-loaded stomper to break rock."
The town bustled from 1903 to 1906, with more than 200 people and 38 buildings. A severe avalanche in 1907 killed three people and stopped activity there, Dunrud says.
Richard, a retired geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, gave a brief mining history of the site. The town was named for William Kirwin, who prospected for gold in the area with a partner in 1885. In the early 1900s, two firms, the Galena Ridge Mining Co. and the Shoshone Mountain Mining Co., used hydroelectric power to create tunnels and cross-cut veins. Although some gold, silver and copper were evident, mining was not profitable. A strong vein of silver was discovered at the Tumlum shaft, near the Earhart cabin site, but because of the difficulty in obtaining water on the steep grades, the ore could not be accessed.
Kirwin fell into decline because obtaining the ore was not economical. "There was not enough high-grade ore and too long a haul to market," Richard explains.
Other mining concerns, including Anaconda Lead and Silver, Bear Creek, and AMAX, attempted to obtain ore through the intervening years. AMAX sampled the area in the 1960s, and discovered that the area held rich deposits of copper and molybdenum. Fluctuating prices for ore combined with the negative public view of beginning open-pit mining, the most effective way of obtaining the ore on the sites, caused the company to eventually cease its explorations. The Mellon Foundation and Conservation Fund purchased the AMAX holdings and donated the Kirwin Mining District and the Double D Ranch site to the Forest Service in 1992.
Since that time, the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office has assisted the Forest Service in keeping the Kirwin buildings intact, using grants and funds including those offered through the Abandoned Mines Land fund, says Mary Jane Luther of the Greybull Ranger District of the Shoshone National Forest. Many volunteers have helped with the effort, including the Dunruds, as well as some tourists in the area.
The mine office, assay office and commissary building are among the structures still standing. The Tumlum shaft also remains, along with an enormous boiler said to have been hauled up the mountain in two pieces by Bronco Nell, a local female freighter of the early days.
Visiting Kirwin
* The Kirwin town site is open to the public and is accessible from late May through mid-November 38 miles from Meeteetse in the Shoshone National Forest.
* Grizzly bears live in the area, so trash must be stored and hauled away. Food should be stored in closed containers and vehicles as well.
* The Meeteetse Museum District leads an annual tour of the area on the third Saturday of August. For more information, call Paige Paisley at the Meeteetse Museum, (307) 868-2423.
Star-Tribune correspondent Lori Van Pelt is the author of "Amelia Earhart: The Sky's No Limit," and she was one of the guest speakers at the Kirwin site this year.