Ghost Towns

Ghost towns may be bad for economic development, but they make for great photographs.

1 minute read

May 22, 2001, 7:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen


Smithsonian photographer Berthold Steinhilber captures the eerie desolation of Bodie, Masonic and other old mining towns: "Ghost towns are palpable history, places where you can reach out and touch the past, where it’s so close it seems just around the corner. I know, because as a boy in the Southwest, I couldn’t leave the house without being warned (in vain) to stay out of the old mines that riddled the surrounding southern Arizona mountains."

Thanks to Chris Steins

Saturday, May 19, 2001 in Smithsonian Magazine

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