Overview

Lost mines, abandoned diggings, ghost towns... The very words conjure enigmatic images of the Old West of the stampede following the discovery of gold in California and the thousands of towns and mining camps that boomed during that brief time when men scrambled through unexplored territory searching for the next big strike. Unlike other books centered on history or travel itineraries, Ghosts of the West: Tales and Legends from the Bonanza Trail walks the reader through a landscape of legends and dramatic non-fiction stories while keeping one foot planted firmly in the real world. With dozens of historical and contemporary photos for illustration, stories are organized into chapters on discoveries, boom times, bust times, and ultimate fates. A final section on lost mines bookends the first with tales of discoveries and caches that were lost, and for which some people search even today. Included are stories about accidental gold and silver strikes that created boom towns, towns that maintained a passive-aggressive continuation of the Civil War, entire cities that vanished completely, the legend of Silver Heels, and the story of the Lost Dutchman gold mine of the Superstition Mountains. Some of the locations discussed are: Bodie, California; Aurora, Nevada; Buckskin Joe, Colorado; Bannack, Montana; Silver Cliff, Colorado; Stanton, Arizona; Granite, Montana; Deadwood, South Dakota; Summitville, Colorado; and Golden, Oregon. The legends of the Old West towns have endured for more than a century, and they continue to fascinate and intrigue. And even haunt us...

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9781733807111

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E. S. Knightchilde is the writer-director of Best Documentary Award- winner, Ghosts of the West: The End of the Bonanza Trail, and the multi- award-winning short, Not for Today, But for All Time... He has presented the multimedia lecture Ghost Towns of the American West to capacity crowds, and is currently at work on the next documentary in the Ghosts of the West film series, subtitled Stampede on the Bonanza Trail. Knightchilde has traveled tens of thousands of miles over the last two decades to film and photograph hundreds of ghost towns and mining camps of the Old West. He currently resides in Estes Park, Colorado, the eastern portal to Rocky Mountain National Park.

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