Atlantic City

As you drive south of Pinedale along U.S. 191, the mountains of the Wind River Range seem to fade to a low point. This is the area through which some 500,000 emigrants traveled over the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails between 1843 and 1870. A near ghost town amid the real ghost towns of Miner’s Delight and South Pass City, this bygone gold rush–era settlement still has a few residents, a couple of tourist-oriented businesses, dirt streets, late-19th-century buildings, and a whole lot of character. Formed in 1868 when gold rushers flocked to the area seeking their fortunes and known for its red-light district, Atlantic City was where Wyoming Territory’s first brewery opened in the late 1860s. Once the gold boom went bust less than a decade later, however, residents deserted the town. Atlantic City had a few more smaller rushes over the years, but none ever matched its early days.