Ghost Towns of Arizona

by Barbara H. Sherman and James E. Sherman

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806108436
• ISBN13: 9780806108438
• Release Date: August 1969
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Length: 220 Pages
• Weight: 1.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.4" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Informative, with decent enough maps

Not complete by any means (only a multi-volume work of many hundreds of pages could approach that), this is still a useful and informative book on Arizona ghost towns. Concentrating on the southern half of the state, the authors do an excellent job of surveying many of the most important towns and mining camps. Photos, mostly historical, and fairly decent maps are also included. One highlight, especially for those who like to attempt a visit to the sites or at least to mark them accurately on a topo map, is the precise range coordinates included for each location. An area of special interest for Arizona ghost town enthusiasts is the Bradshaw Mountains south of Phoenix, which at one time contained over 50 towns and camps important enough to boast having a post office. This book spotlights a little more than half of them, not a bad percentage for a work covering a dozen specific regions around the lower half of the state. The book is an excellent history of about 130 long-abandoned towns and camps, as well as a pretty good guide (in conjunction with topo maps) on how to reach them. Written in 1969, however, whatever remains might have been mentioned at certain sites then may be quite different today. An updated edition would be most welcome.

good directions/history

This book had excellent directions and historical information. A must to understand AZ history if you are not a native....or if you just love history. Directions were super. Photos were a little disappointing. Buy in conjunction with another AZ history book with colorful photos and you will be delighted with set.

Rich with accurate history

This book provides the reader with some excellent background and historical information about the ghost towns of Arizona. I have found this book to be very useful when trying to find information about the towns that I have visited. In particular, the photographs and illustrations are interesting and gie the reader some sense of what each town and it's colorful residents have to offer the reader. Well written and well illustrated, this book belongs on every western history buffs bookshelf.