Nancy Martiny

If you’ve ever traveled south on the back roads of eastern Idaho, you’ve seen the dark forests and craggy mountains give way to sage brush, and then the vast plains to the south. You’ve probably noticed that it was lonesome country, the kind of country that can keep a secret. Towns with names like Custer and Bonanza were once booming towns where men coaxed hidden treasure from the ground, in the form of silver and gold. But those men, and the towns, are gone now. The inscrutable land remains. It still hides a few treasures.

In this land of transition, in a valley 10 miles wide, resides another “ghost town.” May, Idaho, hasn’t passed on yet though, and a handful of residents still support the local café on the few days that it’s open. It won’t be open when winter sets in here at the foot of the Lemhi Mountains. If you travel further up the valley from May, you’ll come to the 125-year-old Martiny Ranch, home of the