Frisco Ghost Town & Charcoal Kilns: Utah's Wild West Desert Relic

Frisco earned a reputation as one of the wildest towns on the western frontier. After silver was found in the nearby San Francisco Mine, the camp exploded into a town of roughly 6,000 people served by some 23 saloons. Its prosperity rested largely on a single mine — and when a major mine collapse struck in 1885, the boom unraveled and the town began its slide into a ghost town in Utah's empty West Desert.

The town's most iconic remnants are five stone beehive-shaped charcoal kilns, which crews used to convert wood into the charcoal that fueled the smelters refining the silver ore. The kilns are the most notable landmark at Frisco and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Nearby you'll also find a cemetery and the scattered, weathered ruins of the old town.

Frisco lies about 15 miles west of Milford on public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management's Cedar City Field Office, which manages public land across Beaver County. The kilns and many ruins are accessible to visitors, but some buildings and mine shafts are explicitly posted as off-limits for safety. For RV travelers crossing Utah's remote western basins, it's an evocative, wide-open stop with little but desert and history for miles.