Elk City, Idaho — Gold at the End of an Unreasonable Road

Elk City exists because gold convinced people that an extraordinary amount of mountain travel was worth the trouble.

Prospectors reached the Clearwater Mountains in the early 1860s and worked rich placer deposits in surrounding creeks and valleys. Elk City became a supply center for claims scattered through remote country.

The gold rush faded, but the isolation never really did.

Roads improved, yet Elk City remains deep inside national-forest country and far from Idaho's major highways. Timber, hunting, recreation and seasonal visitors gradually joined mining as reasons to keep the community alive.

Today remoteness is partly an attraction. People come precisely because the surrounding country is difficult to reach.

The prospectors endured the road for gold. Modern visitors are sometimes looking for the road itself.