There is (at least was) gold in them there hills. A number of the side creeks that feed the Salmon River have been dredged.  Those huge floating dirt sorters dug down to bedrock as they were floated down narrow ravines.  Yankee Fork ravine looks just like the dredged fields in Alaska with row upon row or rejected rubble piled in arcs for nearly 6 miles.  A local non-profit, The Yankee Fork Dredge Association has restored the old dredge and gives tours.  Walking through the actual equipment gives one a better idea of the actual scale of this operation.  The dredge is 112 feet long and the 71 buckets, eight cubic feet each, fed their loads to the dirt sorting monster every three minutes.

Where there was mining there are ghost towns. We visited Custer, a mill town just up the valley from the dredge that in its haydey processed ore from many local mines.  They have some cool antiques and tell a great story.  We could have panned for gold….we chose not to.

In the Stanley Museum we learn of the pioneers, miners, fur trappers, and ranchers that have called this valley home.

Did you know that when people spent ration coupons they got cellulose change? Yeap, they had samples of them at the museum. They were color coded for denomination and printed on to indicate whether it was for sugar or meat or gas or whatever.  I guess it makes sense but I have never seen anything but the ration books.  Cool tidbit.