The century old Miner's Delight Inn first started as the Carpenter Hotel, Kathy Weiser, July, 2008.

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The historic church in Atlantic City still holds services today, Kathy Weiser, July, 2008.

This image available for photographic prints

 and downloads HERE!

In 1890, the Clarence and Nellie Carpenter arrived in Atlantic City and the following year Nellie began serving meals to miners in her home. When the Dexter Mine created a small boom after the turn of the century, the Carpenters built an addition to their home and began to take in boarders. It soon became the Carpenter Hotel, which was expanded in the 1930s and was run by their daughter, Ellen until her death in 1961. Today, the buildings still operate as a bed and breakfast called the Miner’s Delight Inn.

In 1912, the historic St. Andrews Episcopal Church was built, which continues to provide services to parishioners today. It, too, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

By 1920, the last of the area mines closed; however, in 1933, the E.T. Fisher Company built a mining dredge that operated on the streams near Atlantic City, which provided the town with another small boom of prosperity. Though the operation lasted only a few years, the dredge recovered over $700,000 in gold along some ten miles of Rock Creek. During the depression years, the town also welcomed a number of new miners who began to work claims again and a few of the mines re-opened. However, this spurt was also short lived. By the 1950s, Atlantic City had become a ghost town, with only a half dozen residents and the only open business was the Carpenter Hotel.   

The next decade, the mining camp saw its last frenzied mining activity when the United States Steel Corporation constructed a large, open pit iron ore mine three miles northwest of Atlantic City. Although most of the miners commuted from Lander, several made their homes in the old boom camp. The Iron Mine closed in 1982, and Atlantic City soon became the sleepy little town it is today, occupied by summer vacationers and about 50 full-time residents.

Several historic buildings remain in this old mining camp, some of which have been restored and used as homes, while others are fading under Mother Nature's relentless forces. A walking tour brochure is available at an interpretive sign on Atlantic City Road.