Hikers Search for Miners’ Route Through Idaho

MCCALL, IDAHO—The Spokesman-Review reports that members of the Idaho Trails Association and Forest Service archaeologists are looking for traces of the Three Blaze Trail, which once connected Dixie, Idaho, to the Thunder Mountain mining area some 50 miles to the south. So far, team members have found several trees marked with characteristic blazes, pits where miners looked for minerals, and sections of the eroded trail. Morgan Zedalis of the Payette National Forest Heritage Program said homesteaders William Campbell, W.A. Stonebraker, August Hotzel, and Harry Donohue decided to build the trail after Ben and Lou Caswell, who struck gold near Thunder Mountain in the 1890s, sold their mining claims in 1900 and triggered a gold rush. “There was no real easy way to get [to Thunder Mountain], especially for the miners north of the Main Salmon River in Florence, Dixie, and those areas,” Zedalis said. Campbell and Stonebraker collected money from prospectors and miners and then spent two years creating the trail and marking it with three vertical notches on trees along the way. The project was finished in 1902, but the trail fell out of use shortly thereafter. “The gold rush didn’t really last that long. It was good, but it wasn’t enough to sustain all the people who arrived,” Zedalis said. For more on Idaho archaeology, go to "A Seaside Journey to America."