Wyoming Ghost Town Is 100 Feet Under Water [VIDEO]
There are dozens of ghost towns across the Cowboy State, but only one of them is under water. This is the story of Marquette, Wyoming.
In 1878, three decades before Buffalo Bill put Cody on the map, George Marquette came to the Bighorn Basin. One of the first white settlers in the area, Marquette farmed and ranched along the confluence of the Shoshone River.
"Uncle George", as he was known to locals, established the Marquette post office in 1891 and served as the town's first postmaster, justice of the peace, and coroner. By the time the nearby town of Cody was founded in 1906, Marquette had a barbershop, dancehall, general store, schoolhouse, and saloon.
But Buffalo Bill had bigger plans. Cody wanted to build an irrigation dam at the North Fork and South Fork of the Shoshone. Unfortunately for the wild west showman, he ran out of money so he sold his land to the Bureau of Reclamation for the modern-day equivalent of $86,000.
After the Feds paid off other ranchers in the area, construction began on a road and 325-feet-high dam. When it was completed in 1910, Shoshone Dam was the largest in the world. The road eventually became U.S. Highway 14, connecting Cody to the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park.
Shoshone Dam was renamed Buffalo Bill Dam in 1946. At the base of the 82,900 cubic-yard concrete structure lies the remains of Wyoming's only underwater ghost town.