Atlantic City: Surviving the Bust

Atlantic City: Surviving the Bust. . Centrally located on the gold-bearing vein in the area, mines literally surrounded Atlantic City by the fall of 1868. The townspeople soon fostered a thriving business community. In addition to sawmills and blacksmith shops, Atlantic City boasted of beer breweries and one of Wyoming Territory’s first public schools. , Boom rapidly led to bust and the town faltered for a time. A French capitalist, Emile Granier, revived mining interests in the late 1880’s and early 1890’s with a short-lived hydraulic mining development centered on Rock Creek. The early 1900’s saw another boom as a New York firm constructed the Dexter Mill, a large modern milling and recovery facility in the center of town. It met with failure as well. The greatest pay-out in any of the later boom was during the operation of a dredge on Rock Creek during the Great Depression. Although an exceedingly profitable operation, and a blessing to a depressed local economy, its scars are still visible. , Today, Atlantic City remains a community of resilient souls where modern homes coexist with historic log cabins in one of Wyoming’s oldest cities.