Mining Ghost Towns

Mining ghost towns, today chiefly tourist attractions throughout the West, are the haunting reminders of boom and bust periods of former prosperity. A ghost town is a town or community that once had a commercial or population center and is either wholly abandoned or faded greatly from its peak, just a shadow of its former self. In the case of western mining towns, ghost towns are evidence of towns whose initial reason for settlement—mining—was no longer able to keep people in the community. Thus the overnight growth and rapid decline of many mining towns reduced them to ghost-town status.

[Page 453]Between 1848 and the late 1870s, pockets and lodes of silver and gold discovered in the American West resulted in a series of rushes. The gold rush began on California's American River, when gold was discovered by James Marshall at Coloma. Each new discovery was followed by an inevitable rush that brought would-be fortune seekers into desolate areas of Nevada, Arizona, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gold and silver rushes sped up the process of settlement in the West's mountain and deserts, which would not otherwise have been populated as quickly.

Typically, with the first report of gold or silver in the area, prospectors would swarm, both overland and by sea, into the new district by every method of conveyance. They came by foot, stage, and, later, automobile. Following the miners were farmers, shopkeepers, lawyers, saloonkeepers, gamblers, and small merchants, all hoping to make their fortunes off the prospectors. If the boom increased and showed evidence of permanence, promoters and speculators also poured into the boomtowns. These promoters employed a host of methods to entice investors, including excursion trains and boxing matches.

Ghost towns formed for several reasons. First, the environment of many areas in which gold and silver were found was arid or semiarid, which set up conditions for higher rates of failure for the towns. Second, there were often enormous amounts of territory between settlements, which left them vulnerable, especially if they lacked railroads or other access to transportation. Mineral discoveries in Nevada, for instance, occurred in the most desolate of places. Many town-sites were one-resource towns, characterized by the boom and bust economies so common in extractive industries such as mining. Finally, the towns suffered from being sites of frenzied speculation without adequate calculation for the future. Once the lode diminished, these former boom areas faced two fates as production tapped out. One: They might survive a period of depression and start up again once new discoveries were made valuable by capital investments and technological improvement. Two: More commonly, the constantly shrinking towns would support a population of small-time operators who struggled until their home finally achieved the status of a ghost town.

Today's Western mining ghost towns can be completely deserted, or they may have a resident or two left. Some that might have remained ghost towns have been revitalized and now cater to tourism, as in the case of California's Julian and Calico. Ghost town sites run the gamut, from locations where placer deposits were worked, leaving little more evidence than subtle stream disturbance, to tourist attractions with gift shops, museums, and hotels that offer a host of amenities to weary vacationers. Many mining ghost towns are scattered throughout areas of mountain and desert, accessible only by off-road vehicles or on foot. Western mining ghost towns may formerly have been placer camps, quartz towns, or hydraulic towns. Ghost-town enthusiasts are drawn to sites that formed around primary mineral deposits, where the remnants of mills, adits, and tramways may be found. Other sites are sprinkled with buildings such as smelters, ovens, and chimneys, left standing for generations and a favorite of photographers. The best preserved buildings are usually those made of rock or stone, such as residential, commercial, or municipal buildings, but the aridity of the desert has preserved many wooden buildings. Nevada's dry climate has prevented much of the deterioration prevalent in other states. Another favorite of ghost-town aficionados are deserted cemeteries, memorable for the varied designs of the grave markers, not to mention the verses etched upon them. Some ghost towns are merely “paper” towns that no longer have any buildings or markers to mark their existence. These sites can be traced only in newspaper files of the district or records in county court houses.

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