The Silver Trail - Side trip to Mayo and Keno City

Dawson City, Mayo, and Keno City are all abandoned mining towns.  Keno City has a population of 25 persons.  All three have walking tours of the historic buildings in their towns.  They are pretty interesting.

Mayo, originally named Mayo Landing after one of the early riverboat captains, was established in 1903 to service a growing number of prospectors who had discovered gold on nearby river bars and creeks.  Mayo grew rapidly after Louis Bouvette discovered silver at nearby Keno Hill in 1919.

Silver ore was hauled by teamsters onto paddlewheelers at Mayo Landing on the Stewart River.  In 1922, a record 12,000 tons of ore from Keno Hill was stockpiled in Mayo awaiting shipment.

In Keno, I drove up to the top of Keno Hill to the end of Signpost Road.  At an elevation of about 6,000 feet, the site is perched above the steep slopes of Gambler Bulch, on the edge of Louis Bouvette's Roulette claim.  The road was pretty rough in places.

Interestingly, in talking with one of the locals, they get almost no American tourists here; the tourists are mostly from Germany and BC.