The Rocky Mountain and Great Basin states are the heart of ghost-town country. Once-bustling pioneer outposts, mining camps, lumber towns, and railroad villages stand today as reminders of the glory days of gold rushes, industrial progress, and that pioneering spirit of the Old West. This book guides readers to the fascinating and scenic ghost towns of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Nevada. Varney highlights popular tourist destinations as well as out-of-the-way spots unfamiliar even to natives of the region. Maps, historical background, and stunning color photographs bring to life dozens of ghost towns and provide practical information for exploring this fascinating chapter of American history.

Ghosts Towns of the West is filled with photographs, maps, history, and detailed directions to find the best ghost towns to linger in the wake 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, indigenous peoples, settlers, farmers, and miners. Perfect for planning a road trip, 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. Most 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.

Depicts the history of more than one hundred Colorado towns abandoned after the end of the mining boom

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.

Survey of abandoned towns, mostly mining towns, in the West. Well illustrated.

"Unique Ghost Towns and Mountain Spots" by Caroline Bancroft offers a fascinating exploration of ghost towns and mountainous regions that are rich in history and mystery. Bancroft's vivid descriptions and historical insights bring these unique locations to life, making this book an exciting and informative read for those intrigued by the allure of abandoned places and the stories they hold.

ElkhornBasin; Butte; Georgetown and Southern Cross; Granite; Gold Creek; Beartown; Garnet; 6. IDAHO: FROM BOISE BASIN TO THE COEUR D'ALENES; Spalding; Pierce (City) and Oro Fino; Elk City; Florence; Leesburg; Pioneerville; Idaho City; Centerville; Placerville; Boonville and Ruby City; Silver City; De Lamar; Dewey; Wallace; Gem; Burke; Eagle City; Murray; Kellogg and Wardner; 7. WASHINGTON: CHIEF MOSES HELD THE KEY; Fort Colvile; Colville; Kettle Falls, Daisy, and Marcus; Bossburg; Northport; Orient and Laurier; Republic; Okanogan City, Chopaka City; Oroville; Ruby; Conconully.