South Pass City, Wyoming

South Pass City
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
South Pass City in 1870, three years after gold was discovered
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Location	South Pass Rd., South Pass City, Fremont County, Wyoming
Coordinates	42°28′06″N 108°47′59″W / 42.46833°N 108.79972°W / 42.46833; -108.79972Coordinates: 42°28′06″N 108°47′59″W / 42.46833°N 108.79972°W / 42.46833; -108.79972
Built	1867
NRHP Reference #	70000670
Added to NRHP	February 26, 1970

South Pass City is an unincorporated community in Fremont County, Wyoming, United States. It is located 2 miles south of the intersection of highways 28 and 131. A former station on the Oregon Trail, it became a ghost town after later gold mines were closed. The entire community is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The closest town is Atlantic City, Wyoming. Some people have moved back in.

South Pass City developed rapidly as a stage and telegraph station on the Oregon Trail during the 1850s. The site of the first settlement in the area was about 9 miles south of present-day South Pass City, at what is today known as Burnt Ranch. Burnt Ranch was located where the Emigrant Trails crossed the Sweetwater River for the last time and ascended toward the South Pass.

In 1866, gold was discovered in the vicinity, and a year later prospecting began on what would become the Carissa mine. Prospectors and adventurers quickly arrived and founded South Pass City. Within a year, the community's population had swelled to about 2,000. One of those who arrived in 1869, was Esther Hobart Morris. In 1870 she became the first woman in the United States to serve as a Justice of the Peace. At her urging in 1869, William H. Bright, a saloon owner and representative to the Wyoming Territorial Constitutional Convention, introduced a women's suffrage clause into the territorial constitution. When the constitution was approved by Territorial Governor John A. Campbell in December 1869, Wyoming became the first jurisdiction in the United States to grant women the right to vote, a right which was not granted women nationally until 1920.