HISTORIC WOOD

River Valley Woodworks recently reclaimed the bones of three historic buildings from a very special place: an 1870s-era Gold Rush ranch in Garden Valley, Idaho. Set near Grimes Pass—named for prospector George Grimes, whose 1862 gold discovery ignited the Idaho Gold Rush—the property whispers of a time when the Boise Basin yielded more gold than California’s famed ’49 rush or Alaska’s Klondike.

Though the exact date of construction is uncertain, historical records suggest a house stood here by 1865. The hand-hewn beams we recovered—aged to a beautiful patina, each stroke of the adze still visible—speak to that era. Likely cut from trees that took root before the Constitution was signed, this timber once sheltered a working ranch that supplied beef to the hungry miners.

Now, after standing for more than 160 years, these timbers have been carefully dismantled, transported to our warehouse, and made available once again. To live with them is to hold a tactile link to a chapter of the American West—weathered wood that may once have echoed with the voices of ranchers driving cattle under the high Idaho sky.