Monte Cristo Ghost Town

An abandoned 1890s gold and silver mining town accessible via an 8-mile roundtrip hike, once home to over 1,000 miners at its peak.

In the early summer of 1889, prospector Joseph L. Pearsall spotted a brick-red mineral ledge from a 5,500-foot vantage point atop Hubbart Peak in the North Cascade Mountains of Snohomish County. The assays confirmed quality silver and gold. On July 4, 1889, he staked the first claim -- the "Independence of 1776 Mine" -- and a mining rush unlike anything the Pacific Northwest had seen was underway. By 1891, entrepreneur John MacDonald Wilmans had connected with the Everett syndicate backed by John D. Rockefeller, lumberman Henry Hewitt, and New York financiers Charles L. Colby and Colgate Hoyt of Colby, Hoyt & Company. After inspecting the mineral deposits, the New Yorkers purchased a controlling two-thirds interest in the best properties. The Everett and Monte Cristo Railway, 42 miles of track punched through the wilderness, reached Monte Cristo in September 1893. Two townsites emerged that spring -- upper and lower, separated by the railroad yards -- and by 1894 the population exceeded 1,000, with 211 mining claims filed and elaborate cable-bucket aerial tramways hauling as much as 230 tons of ore per day over Mystery Ridge.

Among the fortune-seekers was Frederick Trump, grandfather of a future president, who operated a boarding house and real-estate office in upper Monte Cristo and was elected Justice of the Peace in 1896. But the Cascade Mountains were unforgiving. Unlike Rocky Mountain deposits, the ores here were geologically young -- the product of ongoing volcanic action -- and they assayed well from surface outcrops but unexpectedly lost quality at depth rather than growing richer. Meanwhile, the weather was catastrophic. Beginning annually in November, moisture-laden storms dropped feet of rain on the narrow valleys. Avalanches swept away tramway towers and occasionally the men working beneath them. Labor unrest erupted in 1895 over substandard pay and dangerous conditions, and management responded by replacing troublemakers with Cornish and other immigrants from Rockefeller companies in Michigan.

The death blow came on November 16, 1897, when warm Chinook rains fell on slopes already blanketed with early snow. The resulting flood -- known as "The Deluge" or "The Washout" -- was the greatest flooding event Snohomish County residents had ever witnessed. Railroad tracks, trestles, and bridges vanished downstream. The rail line through Robe Canyon disappeared entirely, leaving only debris-packed tunnels. The community of Sauk City was destroyed and never rebuilt. Residents fled toward Silverton and Granite Falls with minimal possessions, and many relocated to the Klondike gold fields, Mexican silver mines, or Seattle logging camps. Rockefeller's representative Frederick T. Gates exploited the disaster strategically, taking over the remaining mines rather than rebuilding the railroad. Production limped along from 1900 to 1903 under the reorganized Monte Cristo Company, but the boom was over. The last miners departed on Christmas 1920 when an avalanche thundered down Toad Mountain, destroying both the entrance and equipment of the Boston-American Mining Company's exploratory mine. Monte Cristo was dead.

The ghosts of Monte Cristo are not the dramatic, named spirits that haunt Victorian mansions or battlefields. They are the residual imprints of men who came to these mountains believing they would find the greatest lead-silver district in the Western Hemisphere, and instead found avalanches, floods, dangerous working conditions, and ore that betrayed its promise at depth. Hikers on the four-mile trail from Barlow Pass report an oppressive unease among the ruins that goes beyond the natural eeriness of an abandoned town. One backpacker camping near the wooden bathroom facility heard the distinct sound of three or four men's echoing voices and clanging equipment and rocks from inside his tent -- but the actual mines are four miles further up the trail, making the source of these sounds inexplicable. In 2024, a visitor's dog began barking intensely at a mine entrance wall despite dead silence and no one else around; the dog only typically barked at loud noises or unfamiliar people.

The most vivid sighting involves two men in early 1900s mining gear -- lamps and era-appropriate hardhats -- spotted peeking around the corner of the old saloon by a hiker, caught for just a second before they vanished. Miners have been seen walking through the town with lanterns on multiple occasions, long-dead prospectors apparently still haunting the land claims they staked out more than a century ago, their quest for wealth in the mountain still unfinished. Bright, flickering lights appear near the old mining operations on nights when no one is camped in the area. Visitors report the feeling of being watched from the tree line -- eyes in the forest that track their movement through the ruins.

Del and Rosemary Wilkie developed a "ghost town" resort here in the 1950s, and the Monte Cristo Preservation Association formed in 1983 after the lodge burned. Today the MCPA maintains the four-mile trail from Barlow Pass for hikers, mountain bikers, and limited motor vehicles, working with the U.S. Forest Service to preserve the story of this remote Cascade mining town. The remaining structures -- turntable foundations, concentrator ruins, scattered equipment -- stand in a mountain valley accessible primarily during summer months, their isolation ensuring that anyone who encounters the spirits of Monte Cristo does so far from the comfort of civilization.