Ghosts of the Glory Trail

Ghosts of the Glory Trail by Murbarger, Nell. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780913814598.

Intimate Glimpses into 275 ghost towns Nevada, California and Utah. Here are the exciting stories of the early-day mining stampedes of cities sprung from the sage, and of earth-given treasures so phenomenal as to be almost beyond belief. What would present-day prospectors think of a mine where more than three million dollars in silver might be taken from a surface pit the size of a two-story dwelling house; or of ore that yield $150 to the pound in gold. Here, too, is the fantastic story of $80,000 in highgrade tungsten ore shipped from mine to mill by parcel post... and the even-more-incredible rags-to-riches drama of the Man with the King-Size Dream - the lame Nevada prospector who personally peddled oncoming stock at five cents a share to obtain funds to develop a claim which subsequently produced more than $23,000,000 in copper.Especially is Ghosts of the Glory Trail rich in human interest and rare anecdotal wealth gleamed by the author through personal interviews with Old Timers, and from the brittle pages of ephemeral boomcamp newspapers. Recounted here, for what is believed to be the first time in book form, are many unusual episodes from Intermountain history... The Wests last stagecoach holdup involving murder... the only successful raid on the Chinese gambling dens of Tuscarora... the lynching of Candelarias music critic, and the Six-Toed Chinaman of Charleston... the story of the boomtown newspaper that printed its front page in ink mixed with golddust worth &80,000 a ton... the whimsical tale of the Nevada mining camp where two sandwiches were auctioned for $70... and the grim tale of the old Mexican gold miner who froze to death on the desert and was buried with a gallon jug of whiskey clasped between his knees. As for the human figures that lend sparkle to Ghosts o the Glory Trail, only that incomparable, Never-to-Come-Again day of the Western boomcamp could have spawned such a cast of true-life characters. Here the reader will meet such unique individuals as the postmaster-merchant who incurred Uncle Sams wrath by paying for all his postage stamps... the daring opportunist who embezzled Nevadas largest gold nugget... the mule rancher who captured a courthouse... and the Utah miner who captured a $12,000 poker pot on a pair of fours - only to learn that the winners bonus was Death. All these and scores of other historical and contemporary figures enliven the pages of this remarkable saga of frontier days and ways.