If it is abandoned by all or most of its inhabitants, a settlement becomes a ghost town. The buildings and dirt streets may remain, but the character and soul of the place change entirely. And so it was with mining camps, lumber camps, and cowboy towns scattered across America, particularly in the West: places with names like Gregory’s Diggings, Deadwood, Bodie, Calico, Goldfield, and Tombstone, some of the over 30,000 deserted towns in the United States. Why did people come to these isolated places? Why did they leave? As Raymond Bial’s narrative explores the history of our ghost towns, his well-composed photo-graphs silently tell their stories: of bustling, muddy streets, of large mercantile stores, and, ultimately, of short-lived dreams of gold, fertile land, or simply a good place to call home.

The story of the American mining frontier can be traced through the ghost towns that dot the western landscape to this day, from the camps of California’s forty-niners to the twentieth-century ruins in the Nevada desert. These abandoned towns mark an epoch of high adventure, of quick wealth and quicker poverty, of gambling and gunslinging and hell-raising. Those who have seen the Old West movies sometimes think that the legends of the Wild West were invented by screenwriters. The ghost towns remain, and their battered ruins testify that the legends are true. Behind the tall tales is a history where a fortune could be made in a week and lost over the course of an evening. With a historian’s attention to fact and a novelist’s gift for dramatic storytelling, celebrated science fiction author Robert Silverberg brings these adventures back to life in the rowdy splendor of their heyday in Ghost Towns of the American West. History and travelers’ tales are woven together with clarity and wit to create a lively account of a fascinating era in our history. Lorence Bjorklund’s illustrations, rich in detail, portray the ghost towns in their glory and in their dusty decline.

Whatever the reasons, the fascination is undeniable and GHOST TOWNS OF THE OLD WEST is sure to please even the most ardent ghost town aficionado. Featuring a lively, informative text by historian Gary Topping and more than 150 color photographs by noted California photographer Lynn Radeka--all commissioned especially for this volume--this handsome book surveys 18 of the richest, wickedest, and most colorful communities on the frontier.

"Ghosts Towns of the West is the essential guidebook to the glory days of the Old West! Ghost Towns of the West blazes a trail through the dusty crossroads and mossy cemeteries of the American West, including one-time boomtowns in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The book reveals the little-known stories of long-dead soldiers, American Indians, settlers, farmers, and miners. This essential guidebook to the historic remains of centuries' past includes maps, town histories, color and historical photographs, and detailed directions to these out-of-the-way outdoor museums of the West. Plan your road trips by chapter--each section covers a geographic area and town entries are arranged by location to make this the most user-friendly book on ghost towns west of the Mississippi. Ghost towns are within a short drive of major cities out West, and they make excellent day trip excursions. If you happen to be in or near Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, or El Paso, for example, you ought to veer towards the nearest ghost town. Western ghost towns can also easily be visited during jaunts to national parks, including Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Crater Lake, Mount Rainier, Glacier, Yellowstone, and many others throughout the West. Ghost Towns of the West is a comprehensive guide to former boomtowns of the American West, covering ghost towns in eleven states from Washington to New Mexico, and from California to Montana. This book has everything you need to learn about, visit, and explore a modern remnant of how life used to be on the Western range"--

Tombstone, Bodie, St. Elmo, Silver City: these are some of the most famous of the Old West ghost towns and mining camps that dot America's landscape and provide hints to the country's history. But literally thousands more are scattered throughout the West, with some states boasting hundreds of abandoned boomtowns. Attracting thousands of visitors every year, many of these are protected by public and private parties alike, and visits are carefully regulated in order to preserve these valuable historical relics. Clint Thomsen describes various types of ghost town, explains their histories, and outlines ongoing research and archaeological study into decaying towns and mining camps.

Striking full-colour guides. Bound in water repellent, film laminated covers. Extensive center-spread maps of the state highlights locations featured in each book. Special 8-pocket and 4-pocket lucite display racks available with purchase of the series.

In Ghost-Watching American Modernity, María del Pilar Blanco revisits nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts from Spanish America and the United States to ask how different landscapes are represented as haunted sites. Moving from foundational fictions to Westerns, Blanco explores the diverse ways in which ghosts and haunting emerge across the American hemisphere for authors who are preoccupied with evoking the experience of geographical transformations during a period of unprecedented development. The book offers an innovative approach that seeks to understand ghosts in their local specificity, rather than as products of generic conventions or as allegories of hidden desires. Its chapters pursue formally attentive readings of texts by Domingo Sarmiento, Henry James, José Martí, W. E. B. Du Bois, Juan Rulfo, Felisberto Hernández, and Clint Eastwood. In an intervention that will reconfigure the critical uses of spectrality for scholars in U.S./Latin American Studies, narrative theory, and comparative literature, Blanco advances ghost-watching as a method for rediscovering haunting on its own terms.

From deserts to ghost towns, from national forests to California bungalows, many of the features of the western American landscape are well known to residents and travelers alike. But in How to Read the American West, William Wyckoff introduces readers anew to these familiar landscapes. A geographer and an accomplished photographer, Wyckoff offers a fresh perspective on the natural and human history of the American West and encourages readers to discover that history has shaped the places where people live, work, and visit. This innovative field guide includes stories, photographs, maps, and diagrams on a hundred landscape features across the American West. Features are grouped according to type, such as natural landscapes, farms and ranches, places of special cultural identity, and cities and suburbs. Unlike the geographic organization of a traditional guidebook, Wyckoff's field guide draws attention to the connections and the differences between and among places. Emphasizing features that recur from one part of the region to another, the guide takes readers on an exploration of the eleven western states with trips into their natural and cultural character. How to Read the American West is an ideal traveling companion on the main roads and byways in the West, providing unexpected insights into the landscapes you see out your car window. It is also a wonderful source for armchair travelers and people who live in the West who want to learn more about the modern West, how it came to be, and how it may change in the years to come. Showcasing the everyday alongside the exceptional, Wyckoff demonstrates how asking new questions about the landscapes of the West can let us see our surroundings more clearly, helping us make informed and thoughtful decisions about their stewardship in the twenty-first century. Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYSmp5gZ4-I

"A guide to the best ghost towns of California. Once thriving, these abandoned mining camps and pioneer villages still ring with history. Philip Varney equips you with everything you need to explore these sites, including maps, directions, history, and photos"--Provided by publisher.

Discover what life was like in the heyday of the abandoned mines that dot the Nevada landscape, now host to the spirits of those who lost their lives in pursuit of gold, silver, and salt. Step into the Silver State's past, where the echoes of once-thriving boomtowns and mining operations reverberate through the desert to this day. Explore the remnants of a drowned town exposed by the receding waters of Lake Mead, and an abandoned pet cemetery sure to send chills down your spine. The bones of prehistoric creatures lie beside the former residents of Berlin, and in Goodsprings, reports of ghostly celebrity sightings stir up excitement. Join author Heather Leigh on a journey through the eerie history of Nevada's ghost towns.