Home to the last gold rush in America, Teller County attracted a slew of peculiar characters. And many never left. A Victor Hotel regular named Eddie met his untimely death when he tumbled down the elevator shaft. A female apparition clad in Victorian clothing appears on the stairs of the Palace Hotel. A closed tunnel on Gold Camp Road is said to echo with the sounds of screaming children. And lingering spirits are still prisoners at the old Teller County Jail. Linda Wommack uncovers the eerie thrills and chills of Cripple Creek and Teller County.

The life of Josie Bassett was nothing short of a female pioneer adventure. Josie came west in a wagon train at the age of four. Settling in rugged Brown's Park in the extreme northwest corner of Colorado, Josie learned to ride and rope by the age of six. Like all girls, as a young teenager she discovered boys, but Josie's first real boyfriend was a future outlaw, none other than Butch Cassidy. As a young rancher's wife with two young boys, Josie witnessed first-hand the strong-arm tactics of the cattle barons trying to steal the land from smaller ranch owners. When it happened to the Bassett family, Josie's husband and father fought back. Murder occurred at the ranch when a man was hung from the gate post at the entrance of the Bassett ranch. Following a bitter divorce and a few more marriages, Josie moved to the remote area of Cub Creek in western Utah. Here she managed to make a living by hunting, making moonshine and possibly cattle rustling. (She was brought up on charges but acquitted.) Josie married a few more times, running off one husband with a frying pan. He later said, “Josie gave me fifteen minutes to get off her land, I only needed five!” Josie was the feature of a LIFE magazine article in 1948 and was a rodeo queen when she was in her 70s. Josie Bassett lived a long adventurous life, dying in 1963.

Dig deeper into Colorado history through the stories of these remarkable women. Beginning with the discovery of gold near present-day Denver in 1858, Colorado’s placers and mines promised vast riches of gold, silver, and other precious minerals. That promise lured throngs of treasure seekers, including more than a few strong, savvy women. In Women of the Colorado Mines, author Linda Wommack digs deep into their tribulations and triumphs to reveal the true lives of women prospectors, mine owners, labor advocates, and a handful of mining heiresses who found fabulous wealth in them thar hills.

Early Icons and Landmarks As western migration came to the Colorado frontier, forts were established to protect the settlers. These forts were intertwined with the lives of the frontiersmen. Scout Thomas Tate Tobin oversaw the workers who built the adobe fortress known as Fort Garland. Here, Tobin delivered the heads of the murderous Espinosas gang to Colonel Sam Tappan. Fort Sedgwick, originally known as Camp Rankin, was attacked by the Cheyenne Dog soldiers, including George Bent. Fort Lyon, an expanded fortress of William Bent's third fort, became the staging point for Colonel John M. Chivington's march to Sand Creek where peaceful Cheyenne were murdered. Later, Christopher "Kit" Carson died in the fort's chapel. Legendary Jim Beckwourth was associated with both Fort Vasquez and Fort Pueblo. Author Linda Wommack revisits the glory and the mistakes of the frontiersmen who defined Colorado and the forts that dotted the wild landscape.

Haunted America & Other Paranormal Travels allows the reader to discover haunted venues in every state in America and even some abroad. Creepy tales from celebrities, ghost-riddled trains and highways, eerie phenomena, and unexplained anomalies. Its all here if you dare.

Depicts the history of more than one hundred Colorado towns abandoned after the end of the mining boom

" West Virginia boasts an unusually rich heritage of ghost tales. Originally West Virginians told these hundred stories not for idle amusement but to report supernatural experiences that defied ordinary human explanation. From jealous rivals and ghostly children to murdered kinsmen and omens of death, these tales reflect the inner lives—the hopes, beliefs, and fears—of a people. Like all folklore, these tales reveal much of the history of the region: its isolation and violence, the passions and bloodshed of the Civil War era, the hardships of miners and railroad laborers, and the lingering vitality of Old World traditions.