A half hour NE of Potlatch, Idaho is a mountainous area, its prominent feature being Gold Hill, elev. 4646 ft. From its flank flows Gold Creek, as well as other minor streams, all heading towards the Palouse River, which in turn takes a meandering path eastward into Washington and pours into the Snake River.
The ghost town that’s really a ghost would not have appeared along Gold Creek had it not been for events that occurred before it materialized. Of the many adventures of Capt. Elias D. Pierce (1824-1897), it was the moment in 1852 when he joined a former Hudson’s Bay Company trapper in a trading expedition to the distant Nez Perce Indians, and spent the winter at Lewis and Clark’s historic Canoe Camp Site along the Clearwater River.1
Traveling through the stunning lands of the Nez Perce, Capt. Pierce saw gold swirling in his mining pan. Obsessed with the idea of opening a new mining region in the land of the Nez Perce, he retired to Walla Walla to put his plan into action. Resistance to White men encroaching their lands, and fears that encroachment upon the Nez Perce would provoke war in a time where other conflicts were in progress, Capt. Pierce bided his time. In 1860, with a small band of fellow miners, he snuck through reservation land and traveled six weeks along an unknown route to reach the Nez Perce lands along the Clearwater.

Once on the Clearwater, Wild Dove, daughter of Ta-Moots-Tsoo “Chief Timothy” of the Nez Perce Alpowa band, became the guide for Pierce’s gold-seeking party. She is a part of Idaho’s remarkable history, but that is another story (see Jane “Koi-Noo/Wild Dove” Timothy Silcott (1842-1895) – Find a Grave Memorial) An unknown aspect of her story is the role she and Capt. Pierce had with a ghost town along Gold Creek.
Pierce’s long journey to the Clearwater began Aug. 12, 1860, with eleven men accompanying him. The route he chose was to avoid conflict with the Indians, and after perilously crossing reservation land he turned north, stopping where present-day Moscow, Idaho is located because of a snowstorm. Snow was two feet deep down in the flats, and when they tried venturing out the snow was just too deep. They were forced to wait in the flats, where at least the tall grass sticking out of the snow provided feed for their stock.
They waited out winter there in “Horse Heaven”, as they called it, and when they could, ventured out to the hills beyond, discovering small streams and traces of gold. As spring began to break, they continued their journey to the Clearwater, finding gold along Oro Fino Creek with the help of Wild Dove, and triggered the Clearwater gold rush. But one man in the group kept thinking about those little streams they’d found north of Horse Heaven. With another partner, Ben Hoteling left the Oro Fino gold rush and returned, climbed into the hills NE of Potlatch and discovered gold in a little creek that bears his name to this day.
The gold rush that Hoteling created brought a flood of miners, first out of the Lewiston area, and then others came from Washington and Oregon. Gold was discovered in Gold Creek, which Hoteling Creek flows into, as well as Camas and Jerome Creek and others which all flow into the Palouse River. Adam Carrico was one of the first to stake a claim at the head of Gold Creek, where a small town would soon begin to rise.

Small mining towns began to appear throughout the district. Gold Creek became a regular village with a store, post office, and possibly a hotel. In the early days as many as 120 men lived there. As mining continued the district grew, small towns appeared down in the foothills like Potlatch, Freeze, Hampton, Princeton, Harvard, and others. By 1900 the census showed around 750 people living in the mining towns and towns that were situated along the Palouse River.
It was gold that brought Capt. Pierce and his men to cross these lands on the way to Oro Fino. It was a snowstorm that paused their journey and led them to explore the streams that flowed into the Palouse River. It was those streams that called out to Ben Hoteling to return. And it was the gold he found that lured the miners, and then the families, and then towns and commerce to those hills.
Many of the stories I write about arise from researching family and then attaching the history of their time. This story started when I wondered about the history of a ghost town that really seemed to be a ghost. While trying to bring the town back into the light, I found family that had been there and seen what I will never see.
Most ghost towns, in the conventional sense, have known locations, known history, and often something that marks where they were… a rough road leading in, remnants of an old foundation, historic photos, subtle variations in the vegetation, abandoned buildings. There are little to no such clues for the town of Gold Creek.
Gold mining alters the landscape in startling ways. Gold is usually found first in the streams and the lure for more begs the question, “Where is the vein that this gold washed out from?” When a vein is found the digging begins, sometimes as shafts dug straight down, at times as mines burrowing into the hillside. Anything that is in the way; soil, boulders, trees are removed. Logging provides wood for buildings, heat and for mineshafts. Ferocious hydraulics from channeling the stream into long pipes blast soil and rock. Nature plays along, offering erosion and wildfire. A hike there today is nothing like what the miners first found. An occasional mining ditch shows as a mere undulation in the forest floor. Dense forests of white pine and cedar thick enough to block the sun, lush ferns, moisture, and the sound of Gold Creek still babbling towards the Palouse River as it did 160 years ago when Ben Hoteling first swirled his mining pan in the creek.

John Carrico, 1817-1887, and his cousin Dennis Carrico, 1821-1901, had crossed the Oregon Trail with their families about the same time Ben Hoteling was on the trail of gold. Like many who endured the Oregon trail, they first settled in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The call of gold reached far and wide and Dennis’s sons, Adam, Edwin, and Elmer turned back east to answer that call. They discovered what is still called the Carrico Mine at the headwaters of Gold Creek, where the town by that name would grow.

In the early days supplies for the miners had to be freighted in from Walla Walla, but as the number of miners grew, and settlements like Potlatch were established, supplies became a bit easier to obtain. Farmers took donation land claims in the lowlands and could supply meat, vegetables, and fruits. Down in the valley, the city of Lewiston grew and became another source of supplies. Adam stayed up in the cabin on Gold Creek with his wife Josie nearly 50 years. Many are the stories of those early mining days up Gold Creek and one of the finest examples of storytelling can be found through the Latah County Oral History Project, housed at the University of Idaho. In particular, Frank Milbert’s accounts of those early days is a fascinating history of mining, found at: “Frank Milbert (b. 1907)”, Latah County Oral History Collection, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/lcoh/people/milbert_frank.html

While the lure of gold certainly attracted the early settlers and miners to the region, it was family that brought about community and commerce. Letters home with stories of the gold, the fertile lands, and the community brought in more and more people. So it was that Silas Sutton Nearing ventured to Gold Creek. The large Nearing family was a prominent family in North Dakota, with ties to more family in Canada. Silas moved his family to the Gold Creek area, and he can be found in the 1920 Census listed as a carpenter. A couple years after his arrival his sister Lola arrived.

This is where we find that remarkable intertwining of family which occurs whenever an event like the early gold rushes occurred in the Oregon Territory… gold, then miners, then family, community, and all the history of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s that would become our collective history.
Lola’s daughter married James P. Carrico, who was born in Genesee, Idaho, south of Moscow, and was a distant cousin of Adam Carrico. James’s father and grandfather ranched along Cow Creek in Adams Co. Washington, to the east of the Gold Creek mining district. Hence, the two early pioneering families of Latah Co. were joined.
Silas Nearing and his wife Eunice (Crow) had twelve children, most of them settled in various parts of Idaho and Washington after Silas and Eunice settled in Gold Creek. Their son, Leroy “Roy” David Nearing 1881-1954 had a daughter Hattie and she married Arthur Lawrence “Hap” Ross who lived in St. John, Whitman Co., Washington, the county immediately west of Latah Co., Idaho.

Arthur’s mother was Mary Ellen “Mamie” Merritt, born 1880 in Helena, Montana and died 1951 in Spokane, Washington. Her cousin Thomas Merrit 1871-1898 married Margaret Mercy “Maggie” Deardorff, living their lives in Grant Co. and buried together in Prairie City, Oregon.

Family connections, growing communities in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, shared history. Down the road from where I write is an old barn, built by Guy Nearing, son of Silas, just below Nearing Rd. Having lived on Nearing Rd. nearly twenty years and not knowing the history, I was a surprised when, researching Deardorffs and Merritts in Grant Co., Oregon, I stumbled across the name “Nearing”, and naturally wondered if a connection existed.

And, as we now know, the connection was there, and all the history I found, and the family names mentioned above, were revealed. Also revealed were stories of a ghost town called Gold Creek, a town that remains a ghost, for it has not been found.
When the returns from all that hard mining labor ran thin, and other gold strikes drew the miners and their equipment away, the forest grew quiet and began to heal. Successional plants led to a renewing of the forest, buildings rotted and disappeared, memories faded, and the town of Gold Creek disappeared.
There is still something like a magical lure to that land. There are still active mining claims in the State register. There are many stories of gold caches; hidden by miners, hidden by some who it is said lost their minds, caches hidden by nefarious hands. The land itself, though different from how Ben Hoteling found it in the 1860’s, offers subtle clues to where the town may be. Those undulations on the forest floor where water ditches once ran, an occasional chunk of metal, and old mining stories which whisper vague references to the locations of cabins and towns that don’t exist.
The town of Gold Creek may be gone, a ghost, but the ripple effect of its history can be found in the many families spread across the Pacific Northwest.
Resources:
- Idaho State Historical Society, “Elias Davidson Pierce and the Founding of Pierce”, history.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/0008.pdf
- Milbert, Frank. Latah County Oral History Collection, University of Idaho Library Digital Collections, https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/lcoh/people/milbert_frank.html Available as audio and original transcript and is the basis for his book ” Mining and Treasure on Gold Creek 1861-1973″
- Miller, John B., “The Trees Grew Tall.” Publisher unidentified, book out of print. Interview available through oral history project: John B. MILLER (b. 1912) | Latah County Oral History Collection
- Silcott, Jane. Jane “Koi-Noo/Wild Dove” Timothy Silcott (1842-1895) A brief biography and history of the Nez Perce and gold mining at FindAGrave.com
- Boone, Lalia Phipps. “From A to Z in Latah County – A Place Name Dictionary” Publication of the Idaho Place Name Project, 1983
Ray Merritt
Merritt’s & Deardorff’s were definitely early Baker, Grant County pioneers, also to include Montana, where that branch of the Merritts started one of the 1st cattle ranches in Montana territory in 1866. With the new families you find, we branch out even more, it’s amazing all of our relatives that you find, thank you, Ray Merritt
Mgoddard
Yup, I keep digging and find the most amazing connections! Glad you’re checking in on my writing