Category: Books

Tombstone (Images of America)

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Tombstone (Images of America) - Author: Jane Eppinga
Tombstone (Images of America) – Author: Jane Eppinga

Tombstone sits less than 100 miles from the Mexico border in the middle of the picturesque Arizona desert and also squarely at the heart of America’s Old West. Silver was discovered nearby in 1878, and with that strike, Tombstone was created. It soon grew to be a town of over 10,000 of the most infamous outlaws, cowboys, lawmen, prostitutes, and varmints the Wild West has ever seen. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral made Wyatt Earp and John Henry “Doc” Holliday legendary and secured Tombstone’s reputation as “The Town Too Tough to Die.” In this volume, more than 200 striking images and informative captions tell the stories of the heroes and villains of Tombstone, the saloons and brothels they visited, the movies they inspired, and Boot Hill, the well-known cemetery where many were buried.

About the author

Writing credentials include over 200 articles for both popular and professional publications. For four years I produced all material for the Arizona Sheriff Magazine. My writing credentials include more than 200 articles for both popular and professional publications covering a broad spectrum of children’s fiction, travel, personal profiles, biology, construction, food, and public relation pieces. My books include a biography of Henry Ossian Flipper, West Point’s First Black Graduate, Arizona Twilight Tales, and books in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series focusing on Arizona towns including Tucson, Nogales, Apache Junction and Tombstone. She writes regularly for Biology Digest a quarterly publication for high school science teachers. In 2009, Globe Pequot published my book. They Made Their Mark: An Illustrated History of the Society of Woman Geographers. That same year she made a presentation on the Society of Woman Geographers at the 10th International Congress of Women in Madrid, Spain.

Book Summary

NameTombstone (Images of America)
AuthorJane Eppinga
PublisherArcadia Publishing
Pages128 Pages

Bodie: Good Times & Bad

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Bodie, Good Time and Bad - Author Nicholas Clapp
Bodie, Good Time and Bad – Author Nicholas Clapp

Author Nicholas Clapp and photographer Will Furman portray Bodie in both vivid words and stunning photography—a town that had two sides, aptly described in an 1870s account…On the eve of her family’s departure for booming Bodie, a little girl was said to have gathered her dolls, that they might join her as she knelt by her bed, her prayer concluding with a somber…“Goodbye, God; we are going to Bodie!” Word was that the camp was hard-bitten, desperado-ridden.Getting wind of the girl’s farewell to the Almighty, The Weekly Bodie Standard reported that, oh no, that wasn’t what the she had mind. Not at all. Someone had gotten the punctuation wrong. What she surely said was…“Good, by God, we are going to Bodie!” There were, in fact, two Bodies. On one hand, it was “a fearfully and wonderfully bad place” stalked by shootist in black swallow-tailed coats. On the other hand, it was a town of hard-working pioneers who dressed their little girls in starched white frocks and met adversity with charity and good cheer. As he passed through, Mark Twain mused that in Bodie virtue versus vice made for exciting times, and he’d have it no other way. He was to add, “It was a plain wonder how man carried on under such circumstances.”

About The Author

Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author Nicholas Clapp has studied, filmed, and written the deserts of the world. With a master’s degree in cinema from the University of Southern California, his first professional break came when he produced and directed The Great Mojave Desert, a one-hour special for CBS and the National Geographic Society. He has won over 70 major film awards for his documentary work.

Book Summary

TitleBodie: Good Times & Bad
AuthorNicholaw Clapp
PublisherSunbelt Publishing
Pages112 Pages

References

Aurora, Nevada 1860-1960: Mining Camp, Frontier City, Ghost Town

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Aurora Nevada Mining Camp

This expanded Second Edition of Aurora, Nevada 1860-1960 chronicles the history of one of Nevada’s earliest and most important mining boomtowns. It is a reference-oriented book, which includes hundreds of edited and annotated newspaper clippings and other firsthand accounts about Aurora’s buildings, businesses, major mines, social life, Paiute citizens, ghost town days, and final destruction over the entire length of its century-long history. This new edition has 98 additional pages with a new section on violence at Aurora during 1863 and 1864, more information about the Daly gang, complete directories for the boom years 1864, 1880, and 1915, and an annotated list of residents from 1861-1864 and 1880. The book now includes 14 maps and over 200 photographs.

Author’s Note

A “Second Edition” (ISBN 978-1979848862) and newer hardcover “Second Color Edition” (ISBN 979-8507081967) of this book are now available on Amazon., Despite a century of history, and the valiant efforts of all those who believed the town would last forever, Aurora, Nevada, is now and forevermore a “Colossal Wreck” slowly returning to its beginnings-a sagebrush and pinyon pine covered valley home to jackrabbits and a few ghosts from the past. While Aurora is gone, its historical record remains, thus providing us the opportunity to reconstruct the town and its society if only in our imagination. Most historical accounts about Aurora have focused on the town during its early 1860s mining boom. However, Aurora’s rich and colorful history deserves a closer look. This new reference-oriented publication includes hundreds of edited and annotated newspaper clippings and other firsthand accounts about Aurora’s buildings, businesses, major mines, social life, Paiute citizens, ghost town days, and final destruction over the entire length of its century-long history. It also includes directories for the boom years 1864, 1880, and 1915, as well as 6 maps and over 150 photographs, many of which are “then and now” comparisons of the same view., Author’s Note: This book is the original edition but there is also a new revised and expanded “Second Edition” (search ISBN 978-1979848862) of this book now available on Amazon for the same price on a different Amazon page. The Second Edition has 98 additional pages that include 50 new photographs, 6 more maps, an expanded 1864 directory, and a new list of Aurora residents from 1861-1864.

Book Summary

TitleAurora, Nevada 1860-1960: Mining Camp, Frontier City, Ghost Town (Second Edition)
Author Clifford Alpheus Shaw
PublisherCreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 
Edition2nd Edition
Pages488 Pages

Ghost towns of Arizona

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Ghost Towns of Arizona is a nice little book to pick up if you are interested in old western history from the state of the dessert south west. This tomb is in my own personal collection and originally purchased in the 1980s from a book store on Bumble Bee, Arizona.

Ghost Towns of Arizona by James E. and Barbara H. Sherman
Ghost Towns of Arizona by James E. and Barbara H. Sherman

Arizona’s ghost towns exemplify man’s courage, tenacity, and perhaps even foolishness in his search for wealth. Inevitable by-products of the development of gold, silver, copper, and other mineral deposits in Arizona, some of these communities mushroomed overnight into a hodgepodge of tents and makeshift homes, while others developed over a period of years into tidy, well-planned townsites. Whatever their design, intent, or purpose, when their existence was no longer profitable they slipped into the category of ghost towns.

Photographs included show ghost towns, newspaper advertisements, and portraits of people related to the towns, but a few show mining and other activities of active towns. Photographs in the 1960s taken by the Shermans show abandoned buildings, mining equipment, and cemeteries. These photographs and note cards are not part of a collection stored at the University of Arizona.

Book Summary

NameGhost Towns of Arizona
AuthorJames E. Sherman, Barbara H. Sherman
PublisherUniversity of Oklahoma Press
Pages220 Pages
Ghost Towns of Arizona by James E. and Barbara H. Sherman
Ghost Towns of Arizona by James E. and Barbara H. Sherman

About the Authors

James E. Sherman was a professor of engineering at Pima College in Tucson, Arizona. His wife, Barbara, graduated from the University of Arizona. An interest in travel, camping, and photography led them to collect this material and write two books on ghost towns in Arizona and New Mexico between 1964 and 1974.

References

Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps

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Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps - By Stanley W. Paher
Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps – By Stanley W. Paher

Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps is a wonderful book written by Stanley W. Paher and published by Nevada Publications. The book is Copyright 1970 and contains 492 pages of “Brillantly illustrated with 700 historic and modern photographs; with numerous maps, complete index, appendix and bibliography.” This book contains information and stories from more than 575 mining sites and ghost towns in Nevada.

My copy of this book was purchased by my father for $15 at a thrift store. The pages are dog eared and well worn and covered in yellow post-it notes for later reference. The book is wonderfully organized, the source of a lot of great information about the early days of Nevada mining. The stories, photographs paint a fantastic picture of the rough and rugged individuals who settled my new home state. In many ways, the enjoyment and knowledge that I have, is based and builds upon the great work of Mr. Paher.

Stanley Paher grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada and jeeped thousands of miles over the rough roads of back country Nevada. He graduated from Sacramento State with a B.A. in English. He continued his educations at the University of Nevada, where, in 1969 he earned a Masters Degree in Political Science.

The book is available for purchase from Amazon and quite a hefty price on this writing, however you can find it much cheaper at various other online stores.

Anyone who is at all interested in ghost towns, mining or Nevada history really needs a copy of this book in his/her library.

700 photographs and maps both historic and modern make a fascinating detailed and accurately researched history of nearly 600 towns and camps. A must for collectors.

Book Summary

TitleNevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps
AuthorStanley Paher
PublisherHowell North
Edition
Pages492 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-0913814048
ISBN-10: 0913814040

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