Most ghost towns in the American West are a result of mining booms and busts in the late eighteen-hundreds and early twentieth century. (There are abandoned timber-based towns too.) Where no more than a few weathered buildings or stone walls remain today, at their peak the largest towns boasted populations of five to ten thousand souls living, usually, in the middle-of-nowhere.

I've often wondered what attracted people to such hard back-breaking labor in remote and difficult places to live. One day I shared this thought with the Park Ranger at Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park in Nevada, to which he replied, he didn't wonder what attracted people to such places but instead, what life must have been like where they came from that this would seem like the better place to be!

---

To license stock or purchase prints of any photo on this page, add desired images to a lightbox and then use the Lightbox Manager to proceed with your order.

---