Event Details

The Hewgag Breys!

Brothers, Redshirts, PBCs, Retreads, Widder-fearing wanderers, and all respectable-enough members of the Ancient and Honorable Order:
South Pass Chapter #1867 is returning to the high country ghost town of Kirwin, Wyoming, for a full and proper Doins and the long-awaited dedication of our Kirwin historical plaque.

Last year we made the journey by starlight and candlelight, but the plaque was still somewhere between “coming soon” and “blame the mail.”
This year, we go back in daylight, in full force, and with the sacred burden of doing the job properly.
In other words: Return to Kirwin: The Plaque Strikes Back.

Kirwin is about as real as it gets for old west abandoned mining towns. This site speaks directly to our roots as Clampers and as a historical preservation society.
Gold and silver were found in the area by Bill Kirwin and Henry Adams in 1885. By 1892, the townsite was platted, and miners, dreamers, operators, optimists, liars, gamblers, and men who should have known better had made their way into one of the most rugged corners of Wyoming.

At its height, Kirwin held around 200 souls and some 40 buildings, including a post office, hotel, assay office, sawmill, and the usual mining-camp necessities.
But the railroad never came, the money never quite matched the hope, and in February of 1907 an avalanche off Bald Mountain terminally crippled the town.

Even after Kirwin emptied out, history kept wandering through. Amelia Earhart visited the area in 1934 and began construction of a cabin nearby before disappearing in 1937, leaving another unfinished story in a place already full of them.

So we return. We return to dedicate a plaque. We return to honor the miners, families, prospectors, fools, investors, laborers, and hard-country survivors who gave Kirwin its brief, stubborn life.
And we return because South Pass Chapter #1867 said we would.

This is a very remote location!
No garbage service—pack out what you pack in. Let’s leave it better than we found it.

• Saturday meals are included. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be prepared by Clamp Cook Ron “Turtle” Cleveland.
• Dry camping only. Bring your camp gear, water, beverages, snacks, and anything needed outside the Saturday meals.
• 4WD/high-clearance strongly recommended. This is remote mountain country, not a Sunday drive to the latte window.
• Slippery on site! Rough ground, mountain weather, loose history, and possibly a few Clampers who packed poorly.