My other three pages of ghost towns feature Arizona ghost towns, since there are so many to shoot.  Here I have collected all the ghost towns I have visited outside the Grand Canyon State.

Once again, most of the black and white images on this page were shot with Ilford SFX 200, a near-infrared film, to add a more dramatic effect than that offered by more conventional monochrome films.

To learn more about these ghost towns (after seeing my photos, of course!) visit Ghost Towns.com for more detailed history.

    The area around Cripple Creek, Colorado, is littered with old mines, working mines, and hundreds of buildings still standing from the boom times.  Cripple Creek itself has been turned into a gambling town, much like Deadwood, South Dakota, but Independence and Goldfield are closer to their 19th century roots (i.e. still abandoned).  Hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and silver were extracted from these mines, and judging from the active mining still taking place, plenty of gold and silver remains untapped.  Teller County, Colorado.  Photographed July 2002.

    Update: I recently heard a rumor that Independence is slated for demolition; apparently this excellently preserved town will go from the scenes below to a pile of dirt scoured for gold and silver.  Check the background of the third photo below for a forecast of Independence's future.  Progress? Right.
 
 

Miner's shack outside Independence	Independence	Note the active mine in the background
Theresa Mine, Goldfield		Cheyenne Mountain, home of NORAD
Garden of the Gods, not far away

Separ, New Mexico

    Most of my ghost town visits are planned in advance, but I managed to stumble onto Separ completely by accident while driving home from Fort Bayard and Fort Cummings (see my ghost forts page).  Separ had its own post office from 1882-1960, and I know from reading histories of the Apache wars that Separ was a stop on the Southern Pacific Railroad.  Troops F and H of the 9th US Cavalry were stationed there for a time, and these units were mustered for support during an outbreak of Chiricahua Apaches from the San Carlos Indian Reservation in 1881.  Otherwise, not much is available on this tiny settlement.  I'm willing to bet that the buildings below were not around when the 9th Cavalry was, though.  Two houses, a corral and shed, a boxcar, and a burned out service station are all that remain today, although just down the road there is a Cowlins trading post, still open for business.  Grant County, New Mexico.  Photographed January 2003.
 
 

Grafton, Utah

    Farming settlement on the Virgin River, founded in 1859.  Interestingly, in addition to  unremarkable desert crops such as pecans and cotton, at one time Grafton residents produced silk.  Abandoned in 1921 due to constant floods.  Located outside Zion National Park, Utah, and used as a set for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Many of its residents were killed in Indian attacks, the most brutal of which appears to have been on April 2, 1866, when three brothers named Berry and one of their wives were killed (see the gravestone below).  Currerntly under restoration by the Grafton Heritage Partnership.  Washington County, Utah.  Photographed May 1999 during my first road trip through the Southwest.
 
 

More to come.