by Sharon Hall | Jan 29, 2014 | Digging History Magazine, Ghost Town Wednesday
The American West has hundreds of abandoned ghost towns, but east of the Rockies some refer to towns that may still have a few residents as “quiet towns”. These towns have diminished over the years as residents moved away to bigger cities, post offices and schools...
by Sharon Hall | Jan 22, 2014 | Digging History Magazine, Ghost Town Wednesday
In the early 1920’s, James Albert Chambless of Arkansas settled in the Amboy area, near the intersection of Cadiz road and the National Trails Road. The family built a store in the late 1920’s after the National Trails Road was renamed Route 66. In 1932,...
by Sharon Hall | Jan 21, 2014 | Digging History Magazine, Tombstone Tuesday
In 1754 three sons were born to Charles and Sally (Weathers) Pierson in Culpeper County, Virginia. The boys were named, perhaps in order of birth, Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego. Charles and Sally were the parents of at least one other child, Charles. My internet...
by Sharon Hall | Jan 8, 2014 | Digging History Magazine, Ghost Town Wednesday
The Amboy, California area was settled in the late 1850’s but wasn’t established as a town until 1883 or 1884. The town was named Amboy as part of civil engineer Lewis Kingman’s plan to alphabetically name a series of railroad stations across the Mojave Desert...
by Sharon Hall | Jan 1, 2014 | Digging History Magazine, Ghost Town Wednesday
The story goes that this Route 66 ghost town got its name in 1883 when the Southern Pacific Railroad named the station after Baghdad, Iraq (sans the “h”) because of its similar inhospitable climate. Curiously, the railroad named two other nearby towns “Siberia” and...
by Sharon Hall | Dec 25, 2013 | Digging History Magazine, Ghost Town Wednesday
The first mining claim was filed in 1878 in Gila County, Arizona and another one was filed in 1882, but both were invalidated in 1884 when it was found the claims were located within the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. Enterprising miner George B. Chittenden...
