Part history lesson, part amusement ride, ghost towns of the American West reveal only a small, palatable slice of their true story. If we were to really listen, what would the ghosts of abandoned towns like Bodie, California, whisper? According to author Lauren Markham, the Golden State’s forgotten boomtowns hide a history of killing, forced displacement, and environmental degradation—painful truths ignored by most tourists who swing by for a selfie. As Markham discovered on a road trip, they also may hide actual, well, ghosts. On Halloween eve, Markham joins Alta Live to examine the true spirit of California’s ghost towns and share some spooky tales of Golden State ghouls. Join us for this eye-opening peek into the past.

About the guest:

Lauren Markham is an award-winning reporter covering issues of migration, the environment, and her home state of California. She is the author of The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging, and the forthcoming Immemorial.

Here are some notable quotes from today’s event:

  • On ghost towns as memorials: “What this article is looking at is the way ghost towns are effectively memorials to a fictional past. There are memorials to a pioneer era. It’s really an erasure story of all of the violence that was kind of endemic to the making of California, to the making of the West as we know it—which this issue so beautifully reckons with.”
  • On what ghost towns are: “A ghost town is effectively a boomtown that pretty quickly became a big place with lots of activity. And then, pretty quickly, went bust in some way or no longer had the kind of relevancy or economy to support the people who had long lived there.”
  • On the draw of ghost towns of the West: “I think because these were the places, because of westward expansion and manifest destiny, they were hubs of manifest destiny in action, of people coming to make it rich and finding quite a bit of hardship. And that hardship—the hunger, the greed, the need and the hardship often for newcomers—for white Europeans coming here was pretty harsh.”
  • On writing about ghost towns: “I would say that my fascination with ghost towns is particular to my California heritage and my grappling with the implications of being a white descendant from pioneers, a white Californian of many generations. My reckoning with the way I was taught history and having to exorcise that—which I write about a lot in the piece with Salem.”

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.