I dont know. I used to go there when I was a kid and I know it is still there. Hunters go there and hunt deer in the area and thats how i heard of it. I once dug into one of the walls and found newspaper clippings that were over fifty years old. SUBMITTED BY: Kevin Dye

The town is now posted by the current property owner, Tinton Enterprises. They are a commercial mining operation.

The town was initially a gold mining town, but the deposits played out. The current mining operation is going after something even more valuable than gold, Tantalum. Tantalum is a refractory metal, that is practically chemically inert, and is also used in components of nuclear weapons.

Submitted by: Gerald Traylor

Those willing to make the effort to visit Tinton will be rewarded with the ghost town that probably has the most houses and other buildings in the Hills. A trip to Tinton is through some wild country and through several other ghost towns on the way. It is a typical company mining town, and most of the houses are still standing along with a number of other larger buildings including the big miners hall, the post office, and a store with the Black Hills Tin Company name over it. A number of different companies appear to have owned the town at one time or another including The Boston Tin Company, The American Tin Plate Company, The Tinton Company, The Tinton Reduction Company and others. The town is a ghost town photographer's paradise. The best way to reach it is to drive about 6 miles west from Iron Creek in Spearfish Canyon. Submitted by Henry Chenoweth.

Early 1930's Tinton had a sawmill after the mine closed down. Also was a two room school and a general store. One of the teachers' names was Miss Wamsley. The school housed eight grades. There were two boys in the eighth grade at the time our family was there; one boy named Carl and the other was Edward. From our family Merle, Chuck, Florence and John (myself) Wells attended school here. We lived eight miles from the school on the old Huffmaster place which was a loghouse with a log barn at the time. We traveled to school in a buggy during the autumn and a bobsled in winter drawn by horse. There had been times of up to six feet of snow on the roads we had to travel on with the sled. There were people by named of Joselyn that lived there and they had a daughter named Virginia. She also had a brother. One of the school teachers boyfriends was named Charlie.There also was an old man that lived there that found the largest nugget ever found in the Black Hills. His name was Potato Gulch Johnny.

 Tinton is still standing, but is on mining property, and difficult to get into. Local residents in Spearfish Canyon seemed reluctant to give information.THey are afraid of vandalism.  I am very interested in hearing from persons with information about the history of Tinton,as well as nearby ghost towns: Bear Town, Nugget City and "Negro Hill," all in Spearfish Canyon.

REMAINS: Some structures are still standing, others are collapsed. All glass is gone from windows. My husband and I visited the week of Sept. 1, 2006. WE also found two graves on a hill top near a sign that said "Bear Town."

SHORT BIOGRAPHY: There were dwellers in Tinton in the 1800's, and from the early 1900's there was a very active mining community. Tinton was abandoned in the 1950's after the mill burned down.

Submitted by: C.R. W.

Hello, I was surfing around and found your ghost town site. I was reading up on tin mining and didnt know what Tinton produced.
My Mother and her family lived there when she was very young. 

Moms fathers name was Claude Campbell, Claude was a miner / pipefitter. Moms mother was Jean.  In the summer of 1969 my cousin and I ran away to the oil fields in Wyoming to make our fortune. I was sixteen and cousin Pat was seventeen. We drove up to Tinton and spent a day looking in every nook and cranny for any sign of evidence that our family had lived there. Not that we didnt believe our parents but just thought it would be really cool to find something to take home and show the family. We did find receipts with Claude Campbells signature and a pair of old shoes with the name Andy written inside. My moms brothers name was Anthony but everyone called him Andy until the late sixty's. Uncle Andy asked everone to call him Tony. I thought it was strange at the time. At that time, about 1969 Tinton had not been vandalized much and there were many papers, posters, documents laying around in the buildings. Many personal effects left from people who had lived there.

When we finally got home from our trip we gave the shoes to uncle Tony and the receipts to my mother and aunt Marge. They were absolutely thrilled. We could do no wrong, for a few days anyway.

                                                                                                Joe Gussenhoven