The story
Atlantic City rose in 1868, a mile or two from South Pass City, in the same rush to the gold of the Sweetwater country. At the height of the boom the South Pass district towns together held around 1,500 to 2,000 people, and Atlantic City had the saloons, dance halls, and even a brewery to match.
Like its neighbor, it faded fast when the placer gold thinned around 1872, but it never fully died. Later revivals kept flickering — hydraulic mining, dredging, and in the twentieth century a large iron-ore operation that ran nearby into the 1980s — so the town has been booming and busting for over a century.
About 50 people live at Atlantic City today, and it keeps a genuine lived-in character: the historic Atlantic City Mercantile, a couple of old bars, and cabins along the gulch, with BLM campgrounds nearby. It is a working near-ghost, best paired with a visit to South Pass City just up the road.
What remains today
The historic Atlantic City Mercantile, old saloons, log cabins, a church, and mine works along the gulch — a small occupied community.
Questions from the field
- Is Atlantic City, Wyoming a ghost town?
- It is a near-ghost town — a fraction of its gold-rush size, with about 50 residents and a historic core. It has boomed and busted repeatedly since 1868, most recently around a nearby iron mine that ran into the 1980s.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Atlantic City — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
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Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Atlantic City's permanent record.
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Primary sources for this record
- — USGS GNIS feature 1584989
- — Bureau of Land Management — Atlantic City / South Pass Historic Mining Area
- — WyoHistory.org (Wyoming State Historical Society) — South Pass district