NVGHOSTTOWNS.COM
SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF
YOUR HOST:
SHAWN HALL
I was born in 1960 and raised in Massachusetts. While growing up, I became fascinated with the "old" west and read as much as I could find about the west and it slowly developed into a fascination with ghost towns. My first real visit to ghost towns took place in 1977 when my parents and I visited Colorado. Unfortunately, it rained the entire time and most of the ruins were rotted away. After returning to Massachusetts, I decided to pick a state that was dry and Nevada was the winner. I envisioned doing a significant project of a county by county history of the state, something that hadn't been attempted before. By doing it this way, I found that I was able to cover more sites and provide a much more detailed history of places that had been ignored in previous publications.
I first came to Nevada during the summer of 1979 and went to Nye County. That was my first choice because Belmont and Rhyolite were among the most interesting ghost towns I had read about. The trip became a wonderful adventure and I fell victim to "Ghost Town Fever." During that summer, I visited a ranch that used to be an old stage station and ended coming back out during the next five summers, working as a cowboy for a couple of months (fulfilling one of those childhood dreams) and ghost towning. My first book, "A Guide to the Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Nye County, Nevada" was published in 1981. After graduating college in 1983, I relocated to Nevada and attended the University of Nevada to obtain my master's degree. I continued to write and visit ghost towns. I also became intrigued with the public lands issues that deeply affect Nevada which culminated in another publication, "The Western Public Lands: A Growing Crisis." Continued research has led to the publication of "Romancing Nevada's Past: Ghost Towns and Historic Sites of Eureka, Lander, and White Pine Counties" in 1993, "Old Heart of Nevada: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Elko County, Nevada" in 1998, "Preserving the Glory Days: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Nye County, Nevada" in 1999, and "Connecting the West: Railroad Stations and Stage Stops of Elko County, Nevada" in 2002. I am currently writing my next book which covers Mineral and Esmeralda Counties. However, progress has slowed due to spending as much time as I can with my beautiful daughter Heather and my parents, who just recently relocated to the Tonopah area from Massachusetts. All the research for the book is complete and about half of the volume is already written. Target date for completion is late 2008, publication date...unknown.
All of the sites I write about, I have visited because I don't think you can accurately write about a ghost town unless you have been there. It is the only way to give an accurate feeling of what it is like to be there. Besides writing about ghost towns, I also enjoy leading tours to the sites and giving a multitude of historical lectures to interested groups. I have now been involved with Nevada and its ghost towns for more than thirty years and am hopeful that I will be able to accomplish my goal of having a book on every county on Nevada. As long as I can still get to all the ghost towns!! I am the former director of the Northeastern Nevada Museum in Elko, former Assistant Curator of History at the Nevada State Museum, and former Director/Curator of the Tonopah Mining Historic Mining Park. I am currently working as a grant writer for the Nye County School District. I am always interested to hear from other ghost town enthusiasts so please don't hesitate to e-mail me.
