Custer & The Sunbeam Hot Springs
- Ian
- 13 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Tucked away in one of the furthest reaches of the Yankee Fork, miles up an isolated gorge, lies the ghost town of Custer, Idaho. As I roll into town, the dense evergreens on either side give way to wide, open swaths of snow, dotted with aspen and willow trees. The town is quiet, with numerous structures boarded up for winter, their roofs blanketed in a thick layer of snow. Not another soul is in sight as I park the truck and step out to walk through this slice of history.
At the edge of town stands the Empire Saloon, which remains in surprisingly good condition. It looks like it could open as a business during the summer months. Next to it, a few outbuildings stand weathered and unpainted, including a closed-up blacksmith shop. Across the street, a square building with a pale gray tin roof catches my eye. Its yellow paint stands out sharply against the greens, whites, and dark browns of the surrounding landscape.
I walk over and read the sign out front: The Art McGowns Museum. The building was constructed by Art’s parents after he tragically died while working on the Palisades Dam, which was completed in 1957. It feels like a peaceful tribute to a lost life, and the building’s brightness provides a stark contrast to the town’s quiet, gray winter slumber.
In front of the museum and beyond the saloon, scattered bits of iron lie in the snow, large and small remnants from a bygone era. There are pieces of mine carts, old machines that seem to have been grinders for breaking down ore, and rusted scales once used for weighing gold at the assayer’s office. Beyond the museum and saloon, large open spaces stretch out, punctuated only by small posts with numbers on them. These markers indicate the locations of structures that have long since vanished, now returned to the earth.
In the late 1870s, the General Custer Mining Company decided to build a large new mill to capitalize on the gold recently discovered in the Yankee Fork area. According to Aaron Walton at Western Mining History, the company, with George Hearst among its investors, spared no expense. They quickly built a toll road connecting the area to Challis. Along with the mill, plans were made for a townsite. Ground was broken in 1879, and by the end of 1880, both the mill and the town were booming. The mill featured a 20-stamp system, with 20 steel pistons rapidly crushing ore, powered by a crankshaft mechanism similar to one in a car engine.
By 1880, Custer’s population had grown to over 200 people, with nearly 25% of the residents of Chinese descent. At its peak, the town boasted three general stores, three rooming houses, five saloons, four brothels, and a Wells Fargo office. Early on, Custer was also home to several Chinese businesses, including a Joss House (the only church in the entire Yankee Fork District), a livery store, multiple laundries, and a few other small shops. The towns of Bonanza and Custer shared a post office, a cemetery, and a school.
Today, few buildings remain standing in the town of Custer. It's hard to imagine that not long ago, a massive, multi-story mill stood nearby, belching noise and dust all day long. At its peak, hundreds of people crowded the single street, gathering to celebrate the Chinese New Year, a holiday eagerly anticipated by all the town’s residents. Families were raised, houses were built, and the town continued to grow for nearly a decade before its population peaked first in 1888.
That year, the General Custer Mining Company shut down, and nearly the entire town was suddenly out of work—another familiar story in the history of mining towns out West. By 1894, the town’s voter rolls had dwindled to just 34 residents, according to Walton. The town's lull, however, would be short-lived. In 1895, the Lucky Boy Mining Company took control of both the Custer and Charles Dickens mines. Once again, Custer boomed, even gaining the post office and school from nearby Bonanza after a terrible fire broke out just a couple of miles south in 1897.
One building that still stands in town is the Pfeiffer House pictured above. According to the Historical Marker Database, the house was purchased by Charles Alexander Pfeiffer in 1890, shortly after he was married. His wife Ellen Louise looked after their growing brood while Charles worked at his uncle's Pfeiffer Store and had also worked as a gold cleanup man at the General Custer Mill. Like many other homes of the period, rooms were added as the need arose, and the house gradually expanded in size a few times. The roof was originally thatched with flattened tin cans, which was apparently a fairly regular practice in old mining camps of the American West.
While the mill was located right next to the town of Custer itself, the mines themselves were further up the gulch to the northeast. In order to bring the mined ore down to the mill for processing, a tram station was built at the Lucky Boy Mine in the late 1890s. The close of the century also brought with it some rowdy times as the number of saloons in town nearly doubled to eight. The "Custer Crime Wave" began in 1896 and ended a couple of years later after over a dozen major crimes had been committed.
Walking down to the end of town, I came upon a house with faded white letters on the side that said "Ore Bin Gift Shop." In old Forest Service photos, the place is simply referred to as the "I-house," and as of the early 1980s, it was in far worse shape then than it is now, thankfully. Peering inside the glass, I could make out a heavy old iron safe with pitted strapping on all of its edges for reinforcement. The trim around the interior doors and windows of the home is painted a simple white, and the old faded ornate burlap wallpaper has been kept in place in areas to show off the original style of the home. The gift shop looks like it had been out of operation for years; a fine layer of dust settled over every jar and box on the wooden countertop.
After the turn of the century, the good times lasted for a few more years but soon enough they came to an end. By about 1904 or so, the Lucky Boy Mine had closed. Miners explored other options, including a new tunnel in the mine, but all their efforts were in vain; the mines would never officially reopen.
Behind the house lay a newer homestead with a few scattered outbuildings, including a fence around a couple of acres and some old American iron scattered on the edge. I bet the yard is a brilliant green in the springtime with all the water flowing nearby. Beyond that, the road snaked into the woods, and I could not help but follow. Back behind the wheel now, I crawled the camper up past the homestead and back into the trees on top of the early season snow. I drove for about a quarter of a mile or so before it looked like it would get no better. There I decided to turn back around and leave the rest of the Custer Motorway for another time—another short section of my border-to-border route that I would have to leave undone for now.
As I looked southward I could see a very old, weathered building in the distance that looked to be a few stories tall. It took me a moment to recognize its sloped roof supports as a tram house, the kind where the bottom end of a cable would have once been anchored. Now, it stood still and solitary at the far edge of the meadow, its days of service long over.
Rolling back through town, I appreciated the peace of the winter slumber one last time before hitting the throttle and heading back south. I whizzed past the mighty dredge and the tumbling tailings piles before the Yankee Fork of the river itself joined back up by my side. With the sun fading fast, I tried not to stop until I reached the Salmon River once more.
There, I found the remnants of the Sunbeam dam. The Dam had been a project of Sunbeam Consolidated Gold Mines Company manager, C.E. Gable, in 1907. He figured that they could save money on coal and diesel by building a small dam and hydroelectric plant downstream from some hot springs, enabling the plant to run year-round. According to the forest service, construction on the dam began in 1909 and was finished by the following summer using a total of 300 tons of concrete, making it nearly 100 feet wide at the top and 35 feet tall. The dam powered the mine for the grand total of about a year's time before the mine was shut down due to sharply declining ore concentrations. The Sunbeam Mine and its buildings were sold at auction, leaving the dam in the hands of a few caretakers over the years.
In the mid-1930s, after the last caretaker passed and the condition of the fish runs had declined considerably, a detour was blasted around the dam to reroute the water. From then on, the Salmon River has flowed free, earning the title of the longest undammed river in the contiguous United States. Around the same time, the Sunbeam hot springs bathhouse was built by the CCC during the Great Depression. While the indoor pools are no longer full, the old pipes still spit scalding water straight into the Salmon River.
Unable to resist the idea of soaking in the warm, clear waters, I donned my swim trunks and walked down the cold, sharp rocks to the river below. The water lapped over boulders, twisting and writhing into somehow tranquil white foam at a few sharp points. It wasn’t full rapids, but the current was strong enough to create light whitecaps as it rushed downstream. Just next to that, pools almost like hot tubs had been shaped by large boulders, moved there by many passersby over the decades.
Feeling the smallest, steamiest pools near the pipe to be too hot, even in the late fall, I eased into one of the slightly cooler ones closest to the rushing water, wanting to feel its sound close in my ears. I lay there for a while, taking in the ancient sounds of Idaho. The scent of pine floated on the breeze, wind whipping through the trees. At one point, a bald eagle flew right over the river, gliding through my field of view just as the sun was setting—an unforgettable moment, the cherry on top.
Sources:
Challis-Yankee Fork Ranger District - Sunbeam Dam. Forest Service National Website. (n.d.). https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/scnf/about-forest/districts/?cid=fsbdev3_029697
National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form: Custer Historic District . Boise , Idaho . Retrieved March 29, 2025,.
Swackhamer, B. (n.d.). Pfeiffer Residence - A Family Home .
Mitchell , V. E. (1999). (rep.). History of Selected Mines in the Custer Area, Custer County, Idaho .
Walton, A. (n.d.). Custer Idaho. Western Mining History. https://westernmininghistory.com/towns/idaho/custer/
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