Owyhee County

The sprawling high desert wilderness of southwestern Idaho was virtually unknown to whites in 1863, when Mike Jordan and a band of placer miners dipped their pans into the creek that bears his name and found gold. The electrifying news spread, and the people came. Towns sprang up overnight on the mountaintops. Some disappeared almost as quickly as they had appeared. Men needed to work the mines! cried Idaho's newspapers. The word went out, and the miners came from Nevada, California, Colora...