I stopped by Euphoria Salon in Boise’s Hyde Park neighborhood over the weekend to check out their newest art installation, a series of large-format Alpenglow Press images. We took the photographs during a late-September 2008 visit to the historic Yankee Fork dredge along the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River in central Idaho. On our way to a backpacking trip that would take us to the headwaters of Loon Creek in the nearby Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, we stopped off at the historic mining site for a photo shoot. The detour was well worth our time. (Note: Jason’s article from this trip appeared in Backpacker magazine, “Rip & Go: Loon Creek to Horseshoe Lake – Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, ID”)

We recently worked with Lizzie Stoeger, a great friend of ours who is a stylist at Euphoria, to select a series of photographs showing this interesting piece of Idaho’s mining past. We’re excited by how the large, stretch-canvas pieces turned out. Thanks to Lizzie and Melanie Neal (the owner of Euphoria Salon) for placing our photographs on the walls at Euphoria!

The Yankee Fork dredge was built after tests in the late 1930s indicated that $16 million worth of gold could be recovered from the remote valley of the Yankee Fork, information from the Salmon-Challis National Forest states. Parts for the massive dredge were shipped by train to Mackay, Idaho, then hauled by trucks to the Yankee Fork and assembled in 1940.

The dredge is 112 feet long, 54 feet wide, 64 feet high and weighs 988 tons. It was in operation until 1952. The dredge was powered by two seven-cylinder Ingersoll-Rand diesel engines, which produced the electricity that operated the massive piece of equipment. Seventy-two buckets,each eight cubic feet in size, dug through the river’s gravel ore. Today, one can view miles of mine tailings—long piles of course gravel and rounded river rock—along this tributary to the mainstem of the Salmon River. Thankfully, that era has passed into history.

The Yankee Fork dredge is located in the southern Salmon River Mountains about 13 miles east of the rural community of Stanley, Idaho.

We’d love it if you would take the time to stop in at Euphoria to view our photographs and get a great haircut from Lizzie or any of the other fine stylists who work at the salon. Located in the center of the historic Hyde Park shopping district, Euphoria Salon was voted the number one hair salon in Boise in 2009, courtesy of readers of the Boise Weekly newspaper. Check out Euphoria Salon at www.euphoriasalonhydepark.com.

Elizabeth