Some Dreams Die: Utah's Ghost Towns & Lost Treasures

by George A. Thompson

New edition of George Thompson's classic work on Utah ghost towns and lost treasure. Over 400 Utah ghost towns are covered and hundreds more lost treasure tales are told. Illustrated with 120... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0942688015
• ISBN13: 9780942688016
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Dream Garden PR
• Length: 194 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

One of the Most Important Books of my life

I received a copy of this book at Easter when I was very young and it became a stepping stone to new hobby and an appreciation of my home state's history. Full of wonderful information about early settlements in the Beehive State as well as rumored lost treasure near abandoned towns. For nearly a decade after I first read it, Utah Ghost towns became an obsession for me, poring over it over and over, and had to visit as many as possible. You can tell just by reading it that it was a labor of love. I even had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Thompson at his home (which was more like a museum made of all the relics and Photos he had acquired in his life) and only recently learned of his tragic death. I haven't lived in Utah for over a decade now, and miss the joy I felt at visiting these old towns. Maybe someday I can move back and pick up where I left off with Stephen L. Carr's equally excellent Historical Guide to Utah's Ghost Towns in one hand and Some Dreams Die in the other.

AMAZING

This book is so well written and obviously a lot of time and research went into it. For Example the part about Pedro and the dry panning of gold in western Utah. When I was very young the dentist, Dr Stains DDS pulled out a tooth that was paining me immensely, He and my Father talked about this sheep herder.He is so detailed in his writing. I can hardly wait for Spring to come, take my GPS I got for Christmas and my new metal detector and go to several places he mentions. For me now, I am Google Earth searching these specific areas. This is a great book!!!! I highly recommend it.

Excellent read! Good historical information...

I first ran across reference to this book at desertislands.org while I was looking up information regarding the Great Basin and Western Utah, specifically the old mining camps/ghost towns in those areas. After reading some of the excerpts from "Some Dreams Die" that were posted on that website, and living in the general vicinity of the overland stage route and pony express trail in Utah, I decided that I really wanted this book. Surprise! I got the book for Christmas and I read through it in two days. Excellent reading material! I plan on re-reading this book several times, as well as travelling to several of the lost townsites or mine camps listed in this book this spring/summer. The author may have "taken some liberties" or "spun some yarns" while writing, or he may have just written the stories the way he was told them by old-timers that he interviewed. Personally, I believe the latter. Either way, to think that George Thompson - adventurer and desert rat - actually went to each and every one of the areas listed is amazing. Many of the areas that he lists are located in very inhospitable areas like extreme desert or high mountains, and the "roads" to those areas are almost impassable trails, followed by a strenuous hike. If you buy this book, be prepared to be swept away into a long-lost world which is slowly being erased from the face of the earth. Utah or the Bureau of Land Management (or a combination of both) are slowly and surely trying to erase history by bulldozing what's left of old ghost towns and mine camps to make the areas "safe". It's a shame. Much of the westward growth of the United States was fueled by mining, and this book will introduce you to persons who helped the U.S. grow. You'll experience the hopes and dreams of pioneers and miners as they attempted to scratch out an existence in the harsh western deserts and high mountains, either by farming, ranching, or mining. You'll have your curiosity piqued regarding legendary "lost treasures and caches", and you'll wonder if you could be the "lucky" one to find a long-lost cache or mine where you could "strike it rich". I cannot vouch for the 100% veracity of everything written in "Some Dreams Die", but from what I know of the area and what I've read from other sources, I'd say that George Thompson wasn't far off the mark. This book is a treasure, and it's hard to come by. Enjoy!

An AWESOME book: I bow before it in fear and gratitude.

Whether or not you live in Utah, this book is an outstanding collection of random weirdness. It's fascinating and at times unbelievable. Sadly, its author died in a tragic car accident about a decade ago, but this book will forever remain a testament to his adventurous and inquisitive life. (And sadly, he will never be able to write companion books for Arizona and New Mexico. Oh, what the world has lost!) This book is FULL of fascinating stuff: ghost towns, lost mines, treasure lore, and crazy history. It's well organized into sections of the state, has maps, has a ton of entries and a ton of information, and even has a good index (though it doesn't have list any sources or references). The stories inside are facinating, ranging from the legend of the Golden Jesus--a three-foot-tall golden crucifix stolen by Hopis from the Spanish in the 1880s--the Lost Josephine Mine of the Henry Mountains, strange mining stories of the San Juan River, and many, many more. If the book has any faults, it's that the author takes evident liberties in telling the stories of these towns and mines treasures. He comes across as more of a campfire yarn-spinner than a historian, and though this makes the book very entertaining, it also makes the book questionable as a source for reference material. Buy it anyway, though. It's a lot of fun.

Utah Ghost Town Classic

This book is the Classic Ghost Town guide for Utah. Although Thompson leaves many questions unanswered, and probably takes a few liberties in weaving his yarns of lost riches, the stories of the characters and places which comprise the rich history of long forgotten ghost towns, mining camps and outposts in Utah's mountains and deserts makes for fascinating reading.