(First published 2002, reprinted and revised 2004, reprinted 2006)
Foreword by Professor Geoffrey Blainey, AC
Australia’s burst of material progress has been swift and recent that at first sight a ghost town seems to be out of place. But in every region travellers using even the main roads come across the remains of these dead or fast-asleep towns. Some ghost towns, once they come into view, are distinctive because their larger buildings still stand, grand but empty. Several of these abandoned banks, post offices and town halls would attract the eye even if they stood, amongst the architecture of the centuries, in the bustling main street of a European provincial
There are hundreds of ghost mining towns, stretching all the way from the Northern Territory to the west of Tasmania. In the wheat county are silent crossroads where once stood school, blacksmith’s shop, general store, baker, bank, sports ground, and perhaps three churches and the Railway and Wheatsheaf hotels, nearly all of which have long since disappeared. In the forests are the hidden remains of timber-milling townships, all grown over. Here and there, from the Snowy Mountains to the tropics, are the remains of big construction camps that were towns in themselves – until the big dam or long railway bridge was completed.
Barry McGowan had the bold idea of writing a comprehensive book on ghost towns. He set out to see as many as possible; he investigated their history and caught their flavour. He is especially interesting on the mining towns, a field of history that he knows so well. His book, indirectly, is almost a history of remote and rural Australia—its triumphs and failures and its persistent spirit of ‘give-it-a- go’
246 pages, 85 colour photos, 80 black and white photos, limp cover
