{"id":1762,"slug":"bayhorse-bayhorse-idaho","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Bayhorse is the mining town at the bottom of a canyon that produced $10 million and then stopped. The lead-silver strikes came in 1877 — the Ramshorn located by a party out of Bonanza that spring, the district organized that October — and by 1885 the town at 6,000 feet ran a hotel, three stores, a meat market, and five saloons along its single winding street, with two more saloons by 1889.","What makes Bayhorse different is what the smelter needed — nine stone charcoal kilns built in 1882 to feed the ore reduction, the only stone-built charcoal kilns in Idaho, fed by a flume hauling wood down the canyon. Five or six survive in good condition, rowed like beehives at the canyon's edge — the industrial architecture of a town that had to manufacture its own fuel at 6,000 feet.","The town kept nearly everything — false-fronted hotel, board-and-batten cabins, the Ramshorn's mine and tram, the kilns — one of Idaho's best-preserved mining camps, a National Register district with a handful of residents still in it. Bayhorse is the archive's intact boomtown: the street, the smelter, and the kilns all standing, the canyon holding the whole operation from ore to charcoal to saloon.","Bayhorse is the archive's charcoal file — the 1877 lead-silver camp in a Custer County canyon whose nine stone kilns, false-front hotel, and Ramshorn tram survive as one of Idaho's most complete ghost towns."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Bayhorse is the archive's intact-camp file — the Idaho mining town where the whole industrial chain survives: the kilns that made the charcoal, the smelter that ate it, the tram that fed it ore, and the five-saloon street below.","A town that kept its kilns keeps its canyon — the file's suggestion being that Bayhorse's hold is completeness: the stone beehives in the trees, the false fronts on the one street, the $10 million that came out of a canyon that kept everything after."]}],"name":"Bayhorse","aliases":[],"type":"GHOST_TOWN","type_label":"Ghost Town","cats":["GHOST_TOWN"],"groups":["ghost-towns"],"desc":"Historic settlement and ghost-town heritage.","full_desc":"Bayhorse is a ghost town in Bayhorse, Idaho. Historic settlement and ghost-town heritage. It sits in the archive under ghost towns. The dossier holds 2 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors. The dossier keeps the place and the story in the same record — which is what the archive is for.","address":null,"city":"Bayhorse","county":null,"state":"Idaho","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":44.39777778,"lon":-114.31166667,"coord_kind":"WIKI","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Pass 1 discovery. Inclusion is for ghost-town heritage; no haunting claim is implied. Parcel access and coordinates remain unverified.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":67.9,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Mining camp later became a substantial silver producer. A ghost town's file is unusual: the emptiness itself is documented, and this entry is part of that record. Media accounts document it — reported history rather than legend. The detail is preserved in 'Boom or Bust: Exploring Idaho Ghost Towns'. The record keeps it — history, not lore.","evidence":"MEDIA_REPORTED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Boom or Bust: Exploring Idaho Ghost Towns","url":"https://visitidaho.org/travel-tips/boom-or-bust-exploring-idaho-ghost-towns/","publisher":"Visit Idaho","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}},{"description":"Bayhorse is a unit of the state park. A ghost town's file is unusual: the emptiness itself is documented, and this entry is part of that record. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'Land of the Yankee Fork State Park' documents the entry. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Land of the Yankee Fork State Park","url":"https://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/state-park/land-of-the-yankee-fork-state-park/","publisher":"Idaho State Parks","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"operating_season":"Bayhorse unit opens May 1; verify closing date","last_verified_at":"2026-09-14T10:36:21+00:00","source":{"name":"Land of the Yankee Fork State Park","url":"https://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/state-park/land-of-the-yankee-fork-state-park/","publisher":"Idaho State Parks","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},"sources":[{"name":"Boom or Bust: Exploring Idaho Ghost Towns","url":"https://visitidaho.org/travel-tips/boom-or-bust-exploring-idaho-ghost-towns/","publisher":"Visit Idaho","type":"TOURISM","authority":3},{"name":"Land of the Yankee Fork State Park","url":"https://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/state-park/land-of-the-yankee-fork-state-park/","publisher":"Idaho State Parks","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Pass 1 discovery. Inclusion is for ghost-town heritage; no haunting claim is implied. Parcel access and coordinates remain unverified.","incoming_value":"Direct government enrichment. No paranormal inference from ghost-town status. Coordinates omitted where the page gives only an administrative office or distant visitor center.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Bayhorse, Idaho","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayhorse%2C_Idaho","desc":"Former mining town","extract":"Bayhorse is a ghost town in Custer County, Idaho, United States, founded in 1877, though active development of the town did not begin until 1880. Bayhorse was once a thriving mining town, principally supported by large nearby silver deposit. In 1882, the town increased its smelting capabilities, producing $300,000 worth of silver over the course of the year. By 1885, the town had grown to 300 residents, supported by a mill, three stores, a hotel, a restaurant, a meat market, a lodging house, and five saloons. The same year, the town built a refinery, allowing the mining industry to issue silver bars and by 1900, the town had extracted over $10 million in total ores, including silver, lead, a","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Bayhorse_Ghost_Town.jpg/330px-Bayhorse_Ghost_Town.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":90,"lat":44.39777778,"lon":-114.31166667},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":2}}