Birch Creek Charcoal Kilns: A Quirky Blast from Idaho's 19th-century Mining Past

The Birch Creek Charcoal Kilns were built in 1886, right smack in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, not too far from Leadore, Idaho. These bad boys were meant to crank out charcoal for a smelter in Nicholia, where ore from the Viola Mine, about 10 miles east, was being worked. After 1888, when the price of lead took a dip and the vein ran dry, the mining operation closed up shop. But old Warren King, a man from Butte, Montana, set 'em up, fashioning 16 of them from bricks made from local clay, nicked from Jump Creek, no less. Each of these beehive relics stands around 20 feet high and 20 feet wide. Between 1886 and 1888, they guzzled down 30-40 cords of Douglas fir wood to produce charcoal. Remarkably, four of these clay kilns are still standing today, and the Forest Service keeps 'em preserved as a public attraction to gawk at.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons