Ghost Towns of Oklahoma

This is my second copy of this book (the first was lost in a move). I love the stories about long-forgotten places and getting a glimpse into another time. Enough detail is given that we've tracked down the location of many of these "ghost towns". A great addition for anyone that's into Oklahoma history!

This excellent ghost town book identifies and briefly describes about 130 once thriving (at least kicking) towns from across Oklahoma that are today totally gone or are mere shadows of their former selves. About 75% of them can still be found in decent atlases (i.e., The Roads of Oklahoma), and author John Morris makes it fairly easy to locate the remaining 25% with excellent location notes. There are also maps included, though they are only useful in the most general sort of way. The book is also loaded with excellent historical photographs of all the sites, along with more recent pictures as well for some of them. Morris also gives postal information for those town that had post offices, which is most of them. Oklahomans with an interest in their past history will find much inspiration in this book, though any ghost town enthusiast will be pleased with the information found here, too.

The history of such a "new" state is intrinsically colorful, and the stages of growth and development make for the rise and fall of towns and small cities for a wide variety of reasons. The white man mostly ignored Oklahoma prior to the 1840s, giving said growth and development a dynamic unique among the states.The author has collected several dozen stories of such locales, and in addition a vast collection of historical photos and plats, gives regional maps, dates, names, commerce info, populations, etc. His monographs on each "ghost town" (a few of which still exist but are seemingly at the end stage of their existence) are well written, informative, and suitably colorful.Oklahoma has towns that were relocated en toto for the building of reservoirs, towns that were founded as socialist experiments, towns that served primarily as Indian trading posts and withered with the relocation of tribes, etc. Each story is intriguing in its own right, history buff or not. The only reason I rate it less than five stars is its publication date of 1978; an update with rewrites and newly mined information would be wonderful.