Depicts the history of more than one hundred Colorado towns abandoned after the end of the mining boom

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press This is the third in Robert Brown's series of picturesque guidebooks to another era. In text and photographs he has captured the sense of the historic as well as the nostalgic of a new selection of ghost towns and mining camps that dot the back country byways and high mountain valleys of Colorado.

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. One by one, the towns were all but forgotten. Join Jan MacKell Collins and discover the booming history, lost towns and hardy settlers of Teller County.

While Creede, Colorado, had the reputation as a wide-open mining town in the early 1890s ("there is no night in Creede"), Creede's miners went two miles up the hill to nearby Bachelor to drink, gamble and enjoy the ladies of the night. Riches made at nearby silver mines during the day were lost in a night at one of the Bachelor's numerous saloons, gambling halls, and brothels. Among its 1,500 residents, nearly 200 prostitutes plied their trade nightly "Poker Alice" Tubbs, the notorious female gambler who dealt faro and played poker, said that Bachelor "ran ceaselessly at a most turbulent pitch. Ed O'Kelley--a Bachelor founder and its town marshal--murdered Bob Ford, the "dirty little coward" who had assassinated Jesse James just ten years earlier. World heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, lived in Bachelor as a child and probably began to learn his pugilistic skills here. Murders, violence, accidents and destructive fires were commonplace. One man killed his mining partner because he was getting too friendly with his daughters; another killed a man following a dispute over a "turkey shoot." Amid this turmoil, town residents also found time to go to the Bachelor Opera House, attend church, enjoy July 4th celebrations, or simply enjoy a walk in the spectacular scenery. Young children explored the hills and local mines in search of adventure--and found it. Read this exciting story of a ghost town whose candle burned brightly for a short period of twenty years only to return to its natural state as a high mountain meadow.

"Navigates your whole family along 2,550 miles of varied and spectacular terrain, from towering fourteeners to gigantic sand dunes"--Page 4 of cover.

Travel guide book inspired by the gold prospecting origin of Colorado. Includes touring information on all the major towns founded as gold mining camps as well as summaries of each town's origin story. Includes reviews and recommendations on historic districts to visit, mines to tour, driving tours of ghost towns and places to gold pan. Includes information on 16 historic districts, 31 museums, 18 mines, 186 gold panning sites across the state of Colorado. Thoroughly researched to confirm public access to the panning sites (no private property or areas subject to mining claim has been included - unlike other books.)Written by a long-time Colorado resident and gold prospector. Based on years of research and field work.Get your share of the gold by prospecting for it in historic, urban, and remote locations across the gold districts of Colorado.