Southern California's Best Ghost Towns - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Southern California's Best Ghost Towns write by Philip Varney. This book was released on 1994-03-01. Southern California's Best Ghost Towns available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The ghost towns of Southern California-some dramatic and nearly intact, others devastated-are well worth visiting. Most are remnants of once-colorful mining towns, though there are also railroad towns, a World War II relocation center, a promoter's swindle, and a failed socialist colony. Some excellent attractions remain. One of the best-preserved stamp mills in the West is in Skidoo. Smelters, homes, stores, and the remarkable wooden American Hotel can be found in Cerro Gordo, which the author calls "California's best true ghost town." Seasoned back-roads traveler Philip Varney, who has visited nearly a hundred ghost towns in the area, provides a down-to-earth and helpful guide to more than sixty of the best in Southern California and nearby Inyo and Kern counties. He defines a ghost town as a town with a population markedly decreased from its peak, one whose initial reason for settlement no longer keeps people there. It can be completely deserted, have a resident or two, or retain genuine signs of vitality, but Varney has eliminated those towns he considers either too populated or too empty of significant remains. The sites are grouped in four chapters in Inyo County, Death Valley, the Mojave Desert and Kern River, and the regions surrounding Los Angeles and San Diego. Each chapter provides a map of the region, a ranking of sites as "major," "secondary," and "minor," information on road conditions, trip suggestions, and tips on the use of particular topographic maps for readers interested in more detailed exploration. Each entry includes directions to a town, a brief history of that town, and notes on its special points of interest. Current photographs provide a valuable record of the sometimes fragile sites. Southern California's Best Ghost Towns will be welcomed both by those who enjoy traveling off the beaten path and by those who enjoy the history of the American West.
Abandoned Southern California
Abandoned Southern California - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Abandoned Southern California write by Joanna Kalafatis. This book was released on 2018. Abandoned Southern California available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "From prospectors' haunts in old ghost towns dating back to the Gold Rush, to the now-almost-deserted roadside towns of Route 66, the history of Southern California lives on through its abandoned towns and buildings. Through old settlements and institutions, now left to decay in the high desert or even in the middle of bustling, glamorous Los Angeles, readers can get a glimpse into the waves of migration that shaped the spirit of Southern California. The story of the state seems to repeat throughout different decades: California was perceived as the land of unlimited opportunities and renewed hope for incoming migrants, yet often led to a harsher and more challenging existence in real life. Nevertheless, the dreamers and fortune seekers who moved out West, whether for gold, land, spiritual reasons, health, or to escape the rapidly spiraling East Coast during the Great Depression, always persisted. As they moved from one location to the next to seek their fortune, their ambitions, failures, and lives became encased in the places they left behind. This book is the story of those people and places, and the enduring forces that created California as it is today."--Back cover.
Abandoned California
Abandoned California - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Abandoned California write by Andy Willinger. This book was released on 2020. Abandoned California available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In Southern California, settlers have long ventured into the Mojave Desert, seduced by its capacious horizons and fragile beauty, only to be abased by the intense heat, bone-dry terrain and maddening isolation. Industry, intent on extracting the land of its essence, set up operations, then walked away when there was nothing left worth taking. Civilization has always pushed into the frontier, and quite often the frontier pushes back. Areas like the forsaken homesteads of Wonder Valley and the abandoned mining operations of Joshua Tree seem simultaneously depleted yet majestically audacious in their quiet desolation, juxtaposed against the breathtaking landscapes of the desert. Abandoned California: The Mojave Desert is a collection of photographs and writings by Andy Willinger that capture the majesty of these forsaken buildings, vehicles and artifacts of the Mojave's once vibrant past. These sites have become meaningful, unintended statements - not only as vibrant, ephemeral artworks of minimal beauty, but as testament to the impact on nature by humanity. Undaunted, the Mojave Desert continues to brashly flaunt its skill in overcoming man's attempts to conquer it.
Abandoned Northern California
Abandoned Northern California - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Abandoned Northern California write by Joanna Kalafatis. This book was released on 2018. Abandoned Northern California available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. "Driving through Northern California, you will find sprawling military bases, immense wineries, gold mining towns, and amusement parks all lying abandoned. The combination of different people and industries this part of the state has been home to over the years is intriguingly odd. The ruins that lie in the area today reflect the various ways people attempted to build their future in Northern California--not unlike the innovative ways people still try to build their future in the area today. Whether that involves a cool new start-up, a prominent place in the local, internationally respected wine industry, or seeking inspiration for an amazing new book, all kinds of diverse characters come here to dream and innovate. If there is one thing this cross-section of humanity who flocked to the state had in common, it is the will to forge ahead into the unknown. Inventors, military men, gold prospectors, entrepreneurs--they all, in their own ways, took their risks and chances in this newer part of the USA, to create a life, a business, a work of art or science that had never been done before. This is the legacy that has formed Northern California today."
Cerro Gordo
Cerro Gordo - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Cerro Gordo write by Cecile Page Vargo. This book was released on 2012. Cerro Gordo available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. High in the Inyo Mountains, between Owens Valley and Death Valley National Park, lies the ghost town of Cerro Gordo. Discovered in 1865, this silver town boomed to a population of 3,000 people in the hands of savvy entrepreneurs during the 1870s. As the silver played out and the town faded, a few hung on to the dream. By the early 1900s, Louis D. Gordon wandered up the Yellow Grade Road where freight wagons once traversed with silver and supplies and took a closer look at the zinc ore that had been tossed aside by early miners. The Fat Hill lived again, primarily as a small company town. By the last quarter of the 20th century, Jody Stewart and Mike Patterson found themselves owners of the rough and tumble camp that helped Los Angeles turn into a thriving metropolis because of silver and commercial trade. Cerro Gordo found new life, second to Bodie, as California's best-preserved ghost town.
