Golden is a ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 in Box Elder County

Box Elder County, Utah

Box Elder County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. It lies on the north end of the Great Salt Lake, covering a large area north to the Idaho border and west to the Nevada border. Included in this area are large tracts of barren desert, contrasted by high, forested mountains. The...

, Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It is located 6 miles (9.7 km) west of Park Valley

Park Valley, Utah

Park Valley is an unincorporated community in Box Elder County, Utah, United States.Park Valley lies in the northwestern part of the state, northwest of the state capital at Salt Lake City, and west of the county seat at Brigham City. Utah State Route 30 runs through the center of the valley,...

, near the southern base of the Raft River Mountains

Raft River Mountains

The Raft River Mountains are a mountain range in northern Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The ghost town of Yost is on the north central slopes. Tributaries of the Raft River drain the northern slopes of the range.-Geography:...

.

History

In 1899 and 1900, several gold ore

Gold mining

Gold mining is the removal of gold from the ground. There are several techniques and processes by which gold may be extracted from the earth.-History:...

-rich strikes were made in the Raft River Mountains, and the principal camp that grew around them was named Golden. As the mining progressed, the ore changed from gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 to silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

, with quantities of up to 1000 ounces (28.3 kg) per ton. The population of Golden grew to an estimated 500 residents.

Decline

An American financial crisis

Financial crisis

The term financial crisis is applied broadly to a variety of situations in which some financial institutions or assets suddenly lose a large part of their value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these...

, the panic of 1907

Panic of 1907

The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic, was a financial crisis that occurred in the United States when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from its peak the previous year. Panic occurred, as this was during a time of economic recession, and there were numerous runs on...

, damaged the mining industry severely. Legal tender

Legal tender

Legal tender is a medium of payment allowed by law or recognized by a legal system to be valid for meeting a financial obligation. Paper currency is a common form of legal tender in many countries....

 currency was replaced with nearly worthless scrip

Scrip

Scrip is an American term for any substitute for currency which is not legal tender and is often a form of credit. Scrips were created as company payment of employees and also as a means of payment in times where regular money is unavailable, such as remote coal towns, military bases, ships on long...

, so the miners left. The general store

General store

A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...

 moved its wares to Park Valley and Rosette

Rosette, Utah

Rosette is an unincorporated ranching community in Box Elder County, Utah, United States.Rosette is located about west of Park Valley.The community was named by the town's first postmaster, Jonathan Campbell, in 1871. The name refers to the wild roses in the area....

, and the town was abandoned.

Resurgence

In 1910, several mines reopened, and the town had a short resurgence, then a boom in 1920, when a silver-rich ore was struck in Vipont. A tramway was built from the Vipont Mine to a concentrating mill

Stamp mill

A stamp mill is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operation....

, and 300 well-paid workers were hired. Ore was shipped from the area into the 1940s.