A very restorable Chevrolet pickup rests in the weeds in one of Nevada’s best ghost towns, Belmont.
In the summer of 1955, I sat in the back seat of a brand-new Buick as I accompanied my best friend on his family’s vacation. I was eleven at the time, and this young Illinois boy had never seen a mountain. I watched in disbelief as the plains of eastern Colorado began to display an astonishing western horizon.
We stayed for a week at a dude ranch somewhere near Idaho Springs. We took a Jeep trip to an old mine. We visited Central City, with its crumbling, empty buildings—only a few open for the occasional curious tourist. I had seen my first ghost town.
I have never been quite the same since. My family moved three years later to Arizona, and I couldn’t wait to see places like the ghost town of Jerome. Twenty-one years after that, I found myself teaching high school English in Tucson and writing a book about Arizona ghost towns. Its opening entry: Jerome.
I wrote that first ghost town book, Arizona’s Best Ghost Towns, in response to my frustration with the way other such books are generally organized: Most of them had the ghost towns listed alphabetically, not organized geographically, which seemed far more logical to me. Some books had their maps buried in the back, instead of up with the ghost towns themselves. I wanted a completely practical, informative guide that would give me everything I needed next to me on the seat of my truck. That first book’s success led to six more.
My previous books did not attempt the scope that this book does. Four covered one state only (Arizona [twice], New Mexico, and Colorado); two books were necessary for one state (Southern and Northern California); and my most recent book covered two states and part of a province (Washington, Oregon, and southern British Columbia).
The book you have in your hands is similar to those earlier books in that it arranges towns geographically, so you can visit places in logical groups. Each chapter features a map of the area, a history of each town, a description of what remains at the site when I visited, and specific directions to each site. But it is vastly different from my other books because it, of necessity, has to be exclusive. It could not possibly contain all of the ghost town sites in all six states it covers. If you want to find more sites than I have featured here, there are many books that cover one state only. All the books I recommend are listed in the bibliography at the end of this book.
You might be interested to know, for this book, how I selected which towns to include and which to exclude. To begin, if there is very little left at a site, it’s not going to be included unless it is in proximity to another, better site. For example, Bonanza, Idaho, doesn’t offer much in the way of ruins, but it’s adjacent to an outstanding dredge and it’s just down the road from Custer, a rewarding town to explore, so I include it in chapter 5.
At the other end of the spectrum are former ghost town sites that have been thrust into the twenty-first century, having rebounded into modernity. Aspen, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, and Telluride all were once nearly abandoned, as hard as that may be to believe, and all were included in my book Ghost Towns of Colorado but are not in this volume. I did, however, include several communities that have that elusive “ghost town feeling,” places that retain considerable charm despite their modern touches. Examples are Colorado’s Leadville, Lake City, and Silverton; Idaho’s Idaho City; Utah’s Spring City; and Montana’s and Nevada’s towns both named Virginia City.
I also omitted many towns that I have enjoyed visiting but where I felt the buildings weren’t sufficiently distinct architecturally. These were the most difficult towns to exclude, because virtually all ghost towns are interesting at some level. So, to fans of Colorado’s Ashcroft and Independence, Idaho’s Warren, and Nevada’s Manhattan, all I can say is that I had to eliminate towns, and these were some of the last to go. I was standing in each of them when I made my decision.
A person new to ghost town hunting might tour the first entry in this book, Central City, and wonder just what I consider a ghost town to be, because Central City has shops, restaurants, and numerous casinos. By my definition, a ghost town has two characteristics: The population has decreased markedly, and the initial reason for its settlement (such as mining) no longer keeps people there. At the peak of its mining frenzy, Central City had an estimated population of 30,000 citizens; now 515 people live there, and virtually no one makes a living in a mine. A ghost town, then, can be completely deserted, like Carson, Colorado; it can have a few residents, like Silver City, Idaho; it can be protected for posterity by a state government, like Bannack, Montana; or it can have genuine signs of vitality, like Austin, Nevada. But in each case, the town is a shadow of its former self. These four examples were all mining towns, and their boom has long since passed.
The residents living in sleepy places like Colorado’s Silver Plume, Idaho’s Clayton, Utah’s Spring City, or Nevada’s Goldfield may be offended about inclusion in a “ghost town” book. But their communities have “ghost town” indicators: In each case, the population has dropped precipitously, and once-prosperous businesses have closed. In each of the four towns, their historic school has no students.
Miners working at Summitville—elevation 11,300 feet—had only these modest shacks to brave Colorado’s winter storms.
Some guidebooks I have used when traveling in the West were apparently written principally for armchair travelers. Unfortunately, some have been written by armchair authors. I cringe when I realize that a book I’m using has been written by someone who obviously hasn’t personally observed what he is writing about. I first saw some of the sites in this book in the late 1970s. But I visited or revisited every single site in 2007 and 2008. The color photographs in this book, unless noted in the photo’s caption, were all taken within that same time period. The book’s emphasis is on what remains at a town, not what was there in its heyday. I describe what to look for at each site, and in most towns I suggest walking and driving tours.
Patent medicines on display in a Georgetown, Colorado, store promise relief from a host of maladies.
I also make recommendations about museums, train rides, and mine or mill tours. To see them all would be expensive and somewhat repetitious, so when such attractions come up, I give advice based on comparisons to similar tours. My observations are candid, and I received no special consideration at such sites. I paid for all attractions, and guides knew me only as another tourist.
Almost every town has a cemetery. Some of my most poignant moments have come while walking around graveyards, since emotions are often laid bare on tombstones. To read the grief of parents in the epitaphs of their children is to see the West in absolutely personal terms. History comes tragically alive in cemeteries.
Here’s a time breakdown: To visit all of the sites in this book without frantically racing from one to another, I would estimate that you would need about twelve days in Colorado, three days in Wyoming, six days in Idaho, five days in Montana, four days in Utah, and six days in Nevada. I took months longer and drove thousands of miles farther than you need to, but then I was looking at many ghost towns that I eliminated (170 in all). I also needed to photograph in optimum light, so seeing a wonderful, photogenic place like Comet, Montana, at high noon was not acceptable.
Why are we called to these places where so many lives have toiled and so many have been forgotten? My late friend, mystery writer Tony Hillerman, in a foreword to my book New Mexico’s Best Ghost Towns, captured the answer:
To me, to many of my friends, to scores of thousands of Americans, these ghost towns offer a sort of touching-place with the past. We stand in their dust and try to project our imagination backward into what they were long ago. Now and then, if the mood and the light and the weather are exactly right, we almost succeed.
Our “touching-places with the past,” however, are in immediate and long-term danger. Vandals tear up floorboards hoping for a nonexistent coin. Looters remove an old door with the vague notion of using it, only to discard it later. Thieves dislodge a child’s headstone, heart-lessly assuming no one will miss it.
Remember, these old towns are to be explored and photographed but also protected and treasured. You must be a part of the preservation, not the destruction. As you visit the places in this book, please remember that ghost towns are extremely fragile. Leave a site as you found it. I have seen many items on the backroads that tempted me, but I have no collection of artifacts. If you must pick up something, how about a film wrapper or an aluminum can?
When I was doing fieldwork for my book Ghost Towns of Colorado, I found the following notice posted in a lovely but deteriorating house. It eloquently conveys what our deportment should be at ghost towns and other historic spots:
Attention: We hope that you are enjoying looking at our heritage. The structure may last many more years for others to see and enjoy if everyone like you treads lightly and takes only memories and pictures.
—Philip Varney Tucson
A word to my readers who own Ghost Towns of Colorado, published in 1999: That book features almost a hundred ghost towns. This book showcases sixteen Colorado sites. Although there are changes to the text for each site, especially concerning updates on walking and driving tours, the historical information is virtually the same. You will be reading lots of repeat information. But each site was revisited in 2008, and all of the photographs are new.