Remains of the old Carissa Gold Mine in South Pass City, a mining boomtown of 2,000 people in the 1860s in what is now Fremont County, Wyoming, that by 1949 was a ghost town. Over time miners, speculators, and businessmen, finding little gold and suffering in the region's winter blizzards and unrelenting summer heat, abandoned the town, which is named for the surrounding valley that proved the most reliable route through the Rocky Mountains for emigrants on the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails. Now a historic site, South Pass City once again has (in 2016) a few hardy residents. Photo by Carol Highsmith.