Ilse

Ilse then and now

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By Hal Walter

“ISLE, July 10, 1896 – Ilse is the name of the new post office and town that has sprung up at the Terrible Mine, which is on Oak Creek in Custer County, very near the Fremont County line. There are in the neighborhood of twenty-five families living in Ilse, and there is a settler on every ranch from Yorkville to several miles above Ilse.” – Levi “Bona” Hensel, The Pueblo Chieftain

Recently while researching the history of the Terrible Mine for articles about the environmental cleanup going on at the nearby former townsite of Ilse, I was stunned by the number of people who lived and worked in this area during the time between when lead carbonate ore was discovered there in 1879 and the mining activity dwindled in the early 1940s.

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Cleanup time at the Terrible Mine

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By Hal Walter

Local historians say Ilse (pronounced “Ill-see” or “Ill-seh”) was a bustling little community in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with a number of area residents ranching, farming as well as working at the Terrible Mine, where lead was extracted and milled.

According to R.B. Brinsmade, a turn-of-the-century professor of mining engineering, the mine on the bank of Oak Creek produced about 250,000 tons of ore between 1880 and 1907. The lead was freighted out of the Wet Mountains by horse-drawn wagons.

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