Florence, Idaho Ghost Town

Got a Ghost Town Near You?

A couple hours from where I lived, there once existed one of our state’s most booming frontier towns. Florence, Idaho ghost town was settled in 1861 with the discovery of placer mines on the southwest side of the Salmon River canyon. By 1862, ten thousand people reached the settlement.

At its peak, Florence produced about $50,000 worth of gold every day. Even when the mining played out, folks hung around and the post office stayed in service until 1912.

Idaho Ghost Towns

Not much of Florence remains nowadays. No permanent residents. Most buildings disintegrated back into the hillside. But I always found it interesting to visit a ghost town and try to imagine its better days.

Certainly, Idaho has its share of ghost towns. Some lasted only a few months; others for decades. Some were deserted almost overnight. A few got torn down and moved, piece by piece. Several burned to the ground. Some still stand there. In most places you can find a trace of what used to be a thriving community.

Florence, Idaho

Ghost Town Lives

Sometimes I run across people whose lives seem like ghost towns. I find traces of what used to be a prosperous person, a successful family, or a promising career. For them, the best times, the glory days passed them by with little hope of success ever returning. In truth that’s the kind of condition where Jesus finds each one of us.

Paul says, “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).

We may at one time have been without hope and without God, but we were never worthless. Our value doesn’t evolve from our inherent goodness, our talent, or our replaceability. Our worth comes from the price God willingly paid for us. The Bible says, “You are not your own. You were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

Rebuilding Needed

The new owner wants to come in and rebuild the old ghost town of our lives. And He will construct it right. If we allow Jesus to rebuild us, we will end up with a permanent structure. That will be a whole lot better than being a broken-down symbol of what something used to be. And that beats becoming a spiritual ghost town, destined for destruction.

Stephen Bly
Circa 1995

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