From Curiosity to Ownership: Our Adventure In Gilmore, Idaho

By Jon Waraas - First Published: April 10th, 2024

I talk about Gilmore, Idaho and why we are building a cabin there (hint.. it's fun!)

Gilmore, Idaho is a small "ghost town" near Leadore, Idaho which is roughly 10 miles from the Idaho/Montana border. We are building a small cabin there.

I put the ghost town part in quotes because the town has kind of blown up in popularity over the last few years. Now there are a few "full timers" that live there year round. So guess its not really a ghost town anymore.

I first visited Gilmore was with my girlfriend Tiffany back in 2019. We visited the place en route to our vacation in Spokane, Washington.

^ Above: Tiffany and I during our first visit to Gilmore in 2019 :) I randomly found the place on the internet, and wanted to visit and see it.

I was hooked on Gilmore ever since we first went there.

What Is Gilmore, You May Ask?

Gilmore is an old mining town that was established in the 1880's to mine silver, gold, lead, etc. The town flourished for a few years before a slow death until nobody was left living there. Over the last few years however, Gilmore's popularity has picked back up.

^ Above: Gilmore, Idaho in the 1930's

Here is the longer version..

Back in the 1880's, veteran miner Joe Bush was the first to establish a successful mining claim in the Gilmore area.

He then sold his claim to Edgar G Ross in 1902 for roughly $3500.00, which was a good sum of money back then.

Edgar Ross was a successful business man from Pennsylvania, which took Joe's small mining claim, and turned it into a multi-million dollar operation.

In the early 1900's, Edgar purchased all of the lots available in the valley below the mining operations, and called the city Gilmer, Idaho.

^ Above: Edgar Ross home in "Horseshoe Gulch", which is right above the actual Gilmore townsite. Source: A place called Gilmore Idaho.

However, when they submit the charter paperwork, it came back as "Gilmore" instead of "Gilmer". They tried to dispute the incorrect name, but were denied. So the name Gilmore stuck.

The town flourished for roughly 20-25 years, even once hitting a population of 800 people.

The good times lasted until the great depression hit and ore prices tanked. Then the power plant burnt down in 1929.

The final nail in the coffin was the railroad leaving town in 1939.

After that, residents slowly started moving away until none where left.

Then in 1970's, a man named Dick Moll started living in Gilmore and taking care of the place. Which preserved a lot of the history that still is here today.

^ Above: Dick Moll at his cabin in 1976. Dick is the one who saved much of Gilmore and its history. He died of old age at Gilmore in 2002. Dan Lerwill bought his old cabin and has also taken over as the Gilmore historian. Source: A place called Gilmore Idaho.

That is a very very basic description of Gilmore and its history. There's still a lot more to tell.

Why Buy Land In Gilmore?

As soon as we visited Gilmore, I loved it. I'm a history nerd and would loved to own a piece of property inside an old ghost town.

During that first visit, I wrote down the website of one of the realtors selling land up there. I was interested in it right away!

^ Above: Pictured is the old Jagger Hotel in the 1960's or 1970's. In the 1990's, some pesky snowmobilers accidently burned it down trying to stay warm.

In the 60's or 70's (I'll have to double check this) a man bought most of the private town lots, and then started selling them slowly over time.

In the spring of 2020 I bought my first lot in Gilmore, from that man's son. The "large" lots are roughly 50 feet wide by 132 feet in length. Back then the lots were selling for $9,000 each.

At first I put up some simple sign posts and called the place "Camp Badger" because of the old badger den on the lot. We camped on "Camp Badger" a few times, and it was fun, but its too windy up there for a tent. We wanted protection from the wind and sun. We wanted a cabin.

^ Above: The first "Camp Badger" sign with a bullet hole. I briefly allowed camping on HipCamp.Com. It actually got good reviews!

So in January of 2021, I bought two more lots just below and adjacent to my current one. This is where we wanted to build a cabin. We called these new lots "Camp Bluebird" because of all of the bluebirds around the Gilmore area (there's a lot!).

By this time in January 2021, there were still a lot of lots available, with roughly 30%-40% of the private lots still up for sale.

^ Above: An untouched Camp Bluebird in 2021.

But by March of that same year, all of the lots were sold. Apparently everyone took their Covid checks and bought land :/ the rest of the lots sold out within a few months.

It took a couple years of savings, but in 2023 I was able to buy a Amish build cabin and had it delivered to the lots. It took a lot of work to get the cabin in place, but we were able to get most of the important work done in 2023.

^ Above image: The day we broke ground on Camp Bluebird. We officially started work on June 7th, 2023.

Then in February of 2024 I got some good news, my neighbor in Gilmore moved to Colorado and wanted to sell his two lots. I took those lots off his hands, and took over an unfinished building that he built as well. But now having 4 attached lots gives me the opportunity to put in a legal septic system.

No work has been done at Gilmore since last November. We went up there the other days, and there is still too much snow to do any meaningful work up there.

^ Above: A picture of Camp Bluebird last fall. Not much work was completed after this.

This summer we are excited to get back working on the cabin. We have to build a outhouse right away, then hopefully we will have some time to build a deck. However, there it lots and lots of landscaping work that needs done this year as well.

There is still so much to do, and tell. But for today, that's my story about Gilmore, the reason why we are building a cabin there, and our future plans. I hope you enjoyed this blog post, stay tuned for more about our adventure in Gilmore :)

^ Above: One last photo :) This photo was taken in the 1960's. I added the red arrow to show the approximate location of the current cabin. As you can see, most of the original buildings have already decayed.

Conversation:

Brett

April 11th, 2024

Very cool to get the back story and will be neat to watch the progress. Hoping eventually to so do something the similar on the west coast of Canada somewhere. Amazing that in 2006 I first found your site for it's myspace page information and how to build PHP site header/footers for resale. How times change hah. Anyways, keep up the great posts, looking forward to the updates.