Western Ghost Towns

The story of the American mining frontier can be traced in the ghost towns - from the camps of California's forty-niners to the 20th-century ruins in the Nevada desert. They mark an epoch of high adventure, of quick wealth and quicker poverty, of gambling and gun-slinging and hell-raising. We who have seen too many Western movies sometimes think that the legends of the Wild West were invented by scriptwriters - but the ghost towns remain.

Explore the haunting history of the American West as you journey through forgotten boomtowns hiding lost fortunes. Perfect for your next scenic road trip or evening escape, this atmospheric travelogue unearths the gritty reality of ambition, risk, and survival on the rugged frontier. Step past...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A long-abandoned silver mine for sale sounded like an adventure too great to pass up, but it turned into much more—a calling, a community of millions, and hard-earned lessons about chasing impractical dreams. “Inspiring and meditative—the story of man vs...

Step into the abandoned settlements of the American frontier, where relentless gold rush dreams met brutal realities. Perfect for your next road trip or daily commute, this atmospheric journey reconstructs the fragile domestic lives, wild mining pursuits, and vigilante justice that defined a...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Three lives, one hundred years, one ghost town: an explosive novel about a mysterious place called Sunrise, where the secrets of the past refuse to stay buried, from the award-winning author of The Tiger’s Wife “Masterful . . . [Obreht] delightfully mashes up several...

Throughout Teller County, history lovers can find abandoned towns and forgotten main streets that once bustled with life and commerce. Even before Teller was carved from surrounding counties, the scenic mountains and lucrative mines of the gold rush era brought thousands of settlers and attracted resort owners and tycoons eager to exploit the rich setting. Seemingly overnight, towns in the Cripple Creek District and other places popped up, flush with gold and people looking for opportunity. As the ore disappeared, the miners moved on in search of the next big lode.

Grab your pan. Pack your patience. And for heaven’s sake, do not trust every shiny rocks. Gold panning is one of the few hobbies where a grown adult can stand knee-deep in a freezing river, swirl mud in a plastic dish, stare at a speck the size of a flea’s kneecap, and whisper, “This could be it.” Welcome to the ultimate, dirt-under-your-fingernails road trip across America's historic gold country. This isn't your standard, dry history textbook written by someone in sensible shoes. Weird Gold Panning Road Trips is a witty, delightfully unhinged travel guide that takes you past the ...

Three Strangers, 3 days, Trapped in a Ghost Town 100 Years in the Past. Winner, American Fiction Awards Finalist, Eric Hoffer Book Awards Brilliant but burned-out CIA operative Richard Hart has a midlife crisis. He wants out of the intelligence game for good... A CIA operative. A black-site time experiment. A ghost town that shouldn't exist. Three strangers. Three days. Trapped 100 years in the past — and hunted by the dead. 🏆 Winner, American Fiction Awards Finalist, Eric Hoffer Book Awards Burned-out CIA operative Richard Hart wants out of the intelligence game for good. But a career...

Macon Fallon had never needed more than a deck of cards, a fast horse, and a ready gun; he was counting on those things now as he led an unsuspecting group of settlers to an abandoned mining town. But while Fallon prepared to pass the ghost town off as a gold mine in the making, a funny thing...

Are you ready to visit the strangest state in America? Arizona isn't just a state. It's a fever dream baked into red rock and desert sand — where gold mines swallow treasure hunters whole, where ghost towns outnumber living ones, and where thousands of people once watched a massive silent spacecraft glide over Phoenix while the government shrugged and said "probably flares." Weird Arizona Stories takes you on a wild ride through the Grand Canyon State's most jaw-dropping legends, baffling crimes, haunted hotels, desert monsters, and moments of pure human madness that no screenwriter could...

They built cities in the desert. They died for gold. They left behind monuments to ambition and ruin. In 1892, a prospector rode into Southern Cross with saddlebags full of gold. Within three years, 15,000 people lived in a town that hadn't existed before. Within twenty, it was dying. This is the pattern that shaped Western Australia: boom, prosperity, collapse, silence. From Coolgardie to Wittenoom: Stories of Australia's Lost Mining Towns Mining Boom & Bust in Western Australia reconstructs the lives behind the ruins—the miners who chased fortune through waterless country, the women who...

Earned a Booky Award for Most Emotionally Generous Pandemic Evolution of 2047: Survival at Ghost Town The first pandemic changed the world. The ones that followed nearly destroyed it. Kali Mueller learned as a child that family is not always determined by blood. Forgotten, mistreated, and eventually cast out by her father, she finds the love and belonging she has always needed with the Lassiter's, their dogs, and the people who welcome her into their lives. Years later, that chosen family helps build Ghost Town, a hidden community devoted to K-9 search and rescue, security training, and ...

"Doc" Hayes had experienced enough tragedy for several lifetimes, but he thought he had finally found his sanctuary amidst the rugged beauty of the Guadalupe mountain range. Together with his friend and business partner, Conor Byrne, a West Point graduate with a taste for adventure, Doc was the center of what he hoped would be a burgeoning frontier settlement. With the arrival of Kathleen Ryan, a young woman cloaked in secrets, unexpected trouble soon follows. And trouble often seems to have a way of begetting even more trouble.

He wanted peace. She wanted to be remembered. Neither expected to find love between the living and the lost. When blacksmith, Earl Bateman, receives a letter addressed to another man—and a shipment of trunks belonging to a woman named Betsy Sweet—he thinks it’s a mistake. Until the nights turn strange. Until the air in his empty house starts to breathe. Betsy died on her way west to marry a man who never met her. Now her spirit lingers, tethered to the forge that bears his name. She doesn’t know why she’s here or what she’s meant to finish, only that the quiet man by the fire ...

A dime novel for a new age! Tales of the frontier in the terrifying territory of New Golgotha. In the haunted frontier of Lone Creek, resurrected-outlaw-turned-monster-hunter Billy Choate is ensnared by dark forces and a sinister figure known only as the Man in the Crimson Hat. Teamed up with another hunter, Delilah Kane and her spectral coyote, Ash, Billy battles deadly shadows and confronts a past that refuses to die. Every step draws him closer to a fate written in blood—will he break the curse or be forever lost to the darkness? "Shadows of Lone Creek" is a gripping supernatural ...

Ghosts of Silver Maple Island A Jamie Blackwood Mystery When a promising archaeology student is found murdered at a remote river island in West Virginia, Professor Jamie Blackwood is pulled into the darkest case of his career—one that threatens not only a sacred past, but the fragile peace he’s fought to build. Silver Maple Island is more than an archaeological site. Once home to a major Shawnee settlement and the birthplace of the Seven Nations Consortium, it holds artifacts powerful enough to rewrite history—and valuable enough to kill for. As evidence of professional looting ...

A historical fiction book set in the Kansas prairie during the late 19th century. Step into a world where dreams are built on barren soil and the ghosts of the past linger in the windswept landscape. In "The Ghost Town," follow Calvin Morgan, a tenacious man determined to carve out a life as a farmer in the unforgiving Kansas prairie. As he battles the harsh realities of lawlessness and despair, his journey reveals the thin line between hope and destruction in the small, chaotic town of Levi. As Calvin arrives in Levi, he quickly discovers a community haunted by tragedy and moral decay. The...

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice. A blend of professional voice actor and advanced digital narration perform this full-cast audiobook. A Forgotten Love. A Buried Past. A Destiny Waiting to Be Fulfilled. Charlotte Truscott has always known exactly where her life is headed—toward...

Cat and the members of her writers' retreat have just arrived in Outlaw, Colorado, an "Old West" tourist town complete with inhabitants dressed up as famous figures from history. But this authentic slice of Americana takes a murderous turn when a college student masquerading as a 19th-century saloon girl becomes history herself. Was she the intended target? Or did she take a hit meant for someone else? With a cast of suspects to choose from, Cat must unhorse the real culprit before a real-life ghost story is given a killer twist

Ghosts. Murder. Love. Time Travel. T.P.S.I. Agent Burke Jameson travels to Eagle Gulch, Colorado to investigate a report of ghost activity at a house where a murder took place in 1881. When his vehicle carrying his P.S.I. equipment dies, and a riderless mare appears, he mounts up, hoping the horse will lead him to her fallen rider. What he finds is a whole new life beyond his imagination. Clorinda Halstead believes she’s a widow. After all, she was the one who shot her husband, Horace, on a violent night in 1881. He deserved it, the jury concluded. Living with the town marshal and his ...