The Journey Begins

A long time ago, my mother gave me a book, "Ghost Towns of the West."  So, I figured while I was living in the Southwest, not only would I go and explore these towns that at one point use to be booming, but ones that are not listed in the book, but no longer have the population it once had.

This book, which once sat on the bookshelf collecting dust, contains Ghost Towns of Alaska, the Yukon, British Columbia, Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Oregon, and Washington.  Although, I may never see all the places listed, I was not only interested in those places in the book, but places that weren't listed.

As settler's started moving west during the gold rush days, towns began.  Booming with mines and those old "49ers," towns obtained a population into the thousands.  As the gold lost it's cluster (so to speak), people started leaving these towns, which started the term Ghost Towns.  Although Webter's Dictionary defines Ghost Towns as "a deserted town," the more popular Ghost Towns still has residents, as they've been turned into tourist locations, such as Tombstone, AZ; Calico, California

So, the journey begins.