Some thoughts of Ghost Towns
Ghost Towns
The ghost towns seen on TV shows and movies with rows of large buildings all containing furniture are very rare anywhere in the west. Most ghost towns were temporarly mining or ranching camps that were small haphazard affairs even at their peak and usually consisted only of temporarly tent-cabins or simple 1-2 room wood buildings or adobes that did not last long after the places were abandoned. Vandels, treasure hunters and weather have further damaged or worn away what is left. 3
Bannack, once home to a few thousand rowdy residents, is now a ghost town. Along with the old mining towns of Nevada City, Virginia City, Garnet and Coolidge, it is a reminder of Montana’s wild past. All these towns were once bustling with gold and silver seekers, who filled the saloons, hotels and shops when not digging in the ground. Some also brought their families. Their homes stand alongside other time-worn buildings. Now these ghost towns are tourist attractions, even in winter when the icy cold gives them an added eeriness. 2
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A ghost town is a place that is a shadow of its past glory. This can include everything from accessible historical towns – such as Jerome, Ariz., or Calico, Calif. to the ruins of forgotten mining towns, abandoned farm settlements or railroad stops that disappeared when the trains stopped coming. Towns that are remote, hard to gain access to and have very little remaining structures are known as “true ghosts,” Underwood said. 6
Monument Peak, which some old-timers call Lizard Mountain, looms over what’s left of the ghost town of Lake Valley in southern New Mexico on April 16, 2008. Ghost towns are prevalent in the West and Florida with 100 to more than 200 per state, but even states in the Midwest and several Eastern states have between 10 to 100 ghost towns apiece. 1
History writers never took the time to research the ghost towns of Middle America and the Eastern states. Instead, there has always been the fascination with the ghost towns of the Western states. Most books or stories having to do with the “gold rush” will probably mention a Western town that once thrived; yet today it is a ghost town. Those stories have kept alive the interest about the Western ghost towns. 5
A ghost town is a place that is a shadow of its past glory. This can include everything from accessible historical towns – like Jerome, Ariz., or Calico, Calif. ndash; to the ruins of forgotten mining towns, abandoned farm settlements or railroad stops that disappeared when the trains stopped coming. Towns that are remote, hard to gain access to and have very little remaining are known as “true ghosts,” Underwood said. 7
“It’s amazing that at one point some of these ghost towns were teeming hilltops of people,” says Whitfield. “Some of them actually met up and touched. Then, you couldn’t tell when you were leaving one town and heading to the other. Now, there are two or three miles of separation, with one building on one side and one on the other— that’s all that’s left of what was once a three mile stretch of mining activity. 4
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