Abandoned Towns
Atlantic City's houses and red-roofed cabins scattered across a sagebrush valley under a blue sky, July 2011

Gold mining town

Atlantic City

Gold on Rock Creek drew some 2,000 people to Atlantic City in its first boom, from 1868. The boom lasted barely five years; dredges and an iron mine brought it back twice, and a few dozen people live among the old buildings today.

42°29′48″N 108°43′51″W · ≈7,690 ft

Photo: Anna-Katharina Stöcklin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Living hamlet, few services

Atlantic City is a small unincorporated community, and most of its buildings are homes, cabins or businesses. In April 2018 WyoHistory reported the Mercantile open on weekends and fewer than 15 people living here all year. The newest dated report we have, a video posted August 9, 2023, shows the Mercantile open and serving food and people living in old and new houses. Call ahead before counting on food or lodging.

Overview

Three booms on Rock Creek

Atlantic City in its first boom, photographed by William Henry Jackson about 1870
Atlantic City in its first boom, photographed by William Henry Jackson about 1870 · Photo: William Henry Jackson, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Gold was found near South Pass in 1867, and South Pass City sprang up on Willow Creek. The next spring, on April 15, 1868, three men laid out a second town on Rock Creek. They called it Atlantic City because it lay on the Atlantic side of the Continental Divide. By 1869 it had a post office, and Legends of America puts its population at its peak near 2,000. A special census that year counted 1,517 people across all the district's camps.

The placer gold gave out fast. By 1872 the district had produced about $2 million and each of its three towns, Atlantic City, South Pass City and Miner's Delight, was down to about a hundred people. In 1884 a French engineer, Emile Granier, arrived with a plan to wash the gravels with hydraulic jets. He hired about 300 men and dug a ditch from Rock Creek more than ten miles long, but by 1887 he had spent $200,000 without recovering any gold, and the project failed in the 1890s.

Lawrence Giessler's store, built in 1893, became the center of what was left. In the 1930s a dredge worked Rock Creek, until wartime rules stopped gold mining in 1941; by the late 1940s fewer than a dozen people lived here and the post office closed in 1954. Then in 1960 U.S. Steel opened an open-pit iron mine nearby, which ran until the early 1980s. The 2010 census counted 37 people. Many more come up for the summer.

Video

A summer drive through town

Two travelers drive in past the Welcome to Atlantic City sign, show the town from the air, a scatter of houses and cabins on dirt streets in a sagebrush valley, then drive through it: the Miner's Delight Inn's cabins, the fire station, old log and board buildings among newer houses, a pair of roofless stone ruins and a weathered false front. They end with a meal at the Mercantile, which is open. The narration's figure of about 57 full-time residents is higher than the 2010 census count of 37, and its 1982 date for the iron mine's closing follows Legends of America; WyoHistory gives 1983.

Play “A Brief Visit to The Mining Town of Atlantic City, Wyoming” from YouTube
“A Brief Visit to The Mining Town of Atlantic City, Wyoming”, by Quiet Places with Marshall on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

Atlantic City through the years

The state marker "Atlantic City: Surviving the Bust" in front of the Mercantile, July 2011
The state marker "Atlantic City: Surviving the Bust" in front of the Mercantile, July 2011 · Photo: Anna-Katharina Stöcklin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

A Wyoming state marker in front of the Mercantile, photographed in July 2011, says mines surrounded the town by the fall of 1868, that it had breweries and one of Wyoming Territory's first public schools, and that a New York firm built the Dexter Mill in the center of town in the early 1900s, which also failed. The marker calls the dredge of the Depression years the biggest payout of the later booms and notes that its scars are still visible.

  1. Gold is found at Willow Creek, the Carissa ledge soon after, and South Pass City is founded.
  2. On April 15 Charles Collins, H. A. Thompson and Charles W. Tozer found Atlantic City on Rock Creek, named for its place on the Atlantic side of the Continental Divide.
  3. A post office opens. A special census counts 1,517 people in the district's camps; other sources put the area near 3,000 and the town itself near 2,000.
  4. Camp Stambaugh is set up nearby on June 20 to guard the mining district. It closes in May 1878.
  5. The placer boom is over. The district has produced about $2 million in gold, and each of its three towns is down to about 100 people.
  6. French engineer Emile Granier arrives to mine by hydraulic jets, hires about 300 men and digs a ditch from Rock Creek. It never pays.
  7. The Atlantic City Mercantile is built. Run by Lawrence Giessler, it is the town's economic and social center until the store closes in 1929.
  8. The Carpenter Hotel opens. It is now the Miner's Delight Inn.
  9. St. Andrew's Episcopal Church is built (Legends of America).
  10. The E. T. Fisher Company dredges Rock Creek. Estimates of its gold run from $400,000 to more than $700,000.
  11. The Fisher company shuts down for good as wartime rules end gold mining. By the late 1940s fewer than a dozen people live here.
  12. The post office closes for good, after a gap from 1923 to 1926.
  13. U.S. Steel mines iron ore in an open pit a few miles away, about 90 million tons. Legends of America gives 1982 for the closing.
  14. The Mercantile is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 25.
  15. The census counts 37 people in the Atlantic City census-designated place.

What's left

What you'll see

The Atlantic City Mercantile, Giessler's 1893 store, July 2011
The Atlantic City Mercantile, Giessler's 1893 store, July 2011 · Photo: Anna-Katharina Stöcklin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
A roofless stone building in the sagebrush, July 2011
A roofless stone building in the sagebrush, July 2011 · Photo: Anna-Katharina Stöcklin, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Atlantic City keeps many of its original buildings, and it is lived in. The Atlantic City Mercantile, Giessler's 1893 store, is on the National Register and is a saloon and steakhouse (Legends of America); in April 2018 it was open on weekends. The Carpenter Hotel of 1904 is now the Miner's Delight Inn, which was for sale in 2018. St. Andrew's Episcopal Church dates from 1912. A video posted in August 2023 shows the Mercantile open and serving meals, and the Miner's Delight Inn's cabins beside the road. The buildings are private, so look from the road.

The historic maps below show the town's setting. The 1953 Atlantic City sheet marks the town and its cemetery on Rock Creek, the Custom Mill to the west, and the Tabor Grand and St. Louis mines on the hills to the south. The 1961 Lander sheet places it between South Pass City to the southwest and Miners Delight to the northeast, below Iron Mountain. The 1984 South Pass sheet adds the Duncan and Mary Ellen mines, and the Carissa Mine at South Pass City.

  • The Atlantic City Mercantile (1893)
  • The Carpenter Hotel, now the Miner's Delight Inn (1904)
  • St. Andrew's Episcopal Church (1912)
  • Old cabins and houses on the town grid
  • The cemetery
  • Mines and dredge tailings along Rock Creek
USGS topographic map of Atlantic City on Rock Creek
USGS The National Map, topo. The town grid on Main Street north of Rock Creek, with Atlantic City Road and Carpenter Street to the south.
Aerial view of Atlantic City's streets in a sagebrush valley
Aerial imagery, same area. A grid of dirt streets and scattered buildings, with willows along Rock Creek across the south.

Historic maps

Atlantic City on USGS maps, 1953–1984

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Atlantic City, 1953
Atlantic City sheet, 1953, 1:24,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Lander is the nearest town with services. From Lander, US 287 runs south to WY 28, which climbs toward South Pass; a spur and Atlantic City Road drop into town. From Casper, US 20/26 and WY 789 run west to the Lander area to join the same road. The routes were computed from OpenStreetMap and haven't been driven by us.

USGS topographic map from Lander south to Atlantic City, with the route drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Lander30.4 miabout 41 min
  1. From downtown, follow Main Street (US 287) south out of town.8.8 mi
  2. Continue on WY 28 toward South Pass.17.4 mi
  3. Keep left on the WY 28 spur.1.5 mi
  4. Turn left on Atlantic City Road.2.5 mi
  5. Continue onto Main Street into town.0.2 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • Wikipedia says gravel roads connect Atlantic City to WY 28. WyoHistory (2018) puts the town about 1.5 miles southeast of the highway.
  • The town is at about 7,700 feet. Check Wyoming road reports for WY 28 over South Pass before you go.

Photos

Atlantic City in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Atlantic City?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Atlantic City

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Wyoming index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. Quiet Places with Marshall, "A Brief Visit to The Mining Town of Atlantic City, Wyoming", YouTube, posted August 9, 2023: the video on this page; the town lived in and the Mercantile open.
  2. ghosttowns.com, "Atlantic City": fact sheet (road, climate, remains), the 1868 founding and a peak of about 2,000.
  3. Wikipedia, "Atlantic City, Wyoming", read October 2026: the 1868 founding, the name, the 2010 census, the iron mine, gravel roads to WY 28.
  4. Lori Van Pelt, "Atlantic City: Boom-Bust Survivor," WyoHistory.org, April 2, 2018: founders and date, 1869 post office and census, Camp Stambaugh, gold output, Granier, the Carpenter Hotel, the Fisher dredge, post office dates, the iron mine, residents and the Mercantile in 2018, directions from Lander.
  5. Wikipedia, "List of ghost towns in Wyoming": Atlantic City listed as semi-abandoned, settled 1868.
  6. Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, "Atlantic City Mercantile": built 1893, listed April 25, 1985, run by Giessler and the town's center until 1929, the district near 3,000 in 1869.
  7. Wyoming state historical marker "Atlantic City: Surviving the Bust", as photographed in July 2011 (Wikimedia Commons): breweries, an early public school, the Dexter Mill, the Depression dredge.
  8. Legends of America, "Atlantic City, Wyoming", Kathy Alexander, updated October 2026: some 2,000 at the peak, St. Andrew's Church (1912), the $700,000 dredge estimate, the mine's 1982 closing.
  9. Coordinates: OpenStreetMap's point for the hamlet, beside the Mercantile on Main Street; Wikipedia's coordinates (42.4953, -108.7522) fall about a mile west of town. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.

Photo and map credits