LEESBURG

In the summer of 1866, Frank B. Sharkey led a party of five miners from Montana on a prospecting mission to the Salmon area of Idaho. At that time it was much easier to get to that area from western Montana than from Boise or Idaho City.

One member of the group had also mined at Pierce and at Florence a few years earlier, before moving on to strikes in Montana. Now his group was following a rumor of a rich stream in different part of Idaho. Heading south from Deer Lodge, Montana the prospectors reached a creek they named Napias for the Indian word for gold.

Local historian Faye Coiner explains why: "They did placering all along the way. And right at Napias Creek at Warrens Gulch they made a big strike. They were finding a lot of gold in about every pan. You know, you just can't keep a secret even in those days. The word gold got out and the mining camp was filling up real fast."

Two rival camps sprung up at the site of the discovery. Former Confederate soldiers named one town Leesburg in honor of their beloved general, Robert E. Lee.
Meanwhile Union supporters created Grantsville at the east end of Leesburg. For a time the two towns shared the same main street, but eventually Leesburg won out as the name for the entire community. During its peak years Leesburg was the largest town in Lemhi County, with a population of around 3,000 people.

Leesburg ultimately suffered the fate of most boomtowns, gold became scarce and the miners began to drift away. The stagecoach that traveled the rugged miles from the mining supply town of Salmon to the gold fields of Leesburg stopped running. The community hung on for many years but eventually everyone left and Leesburg became a true ghost town.