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Ghost Towns of the Upper Potomac

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This book focuses on a very small area along the Potomac River that divides Garrett County, MD and Grant and Mineral Counties, WV, a total of about 30 miles or so. Within that distance the book (a joint effort published by the Garrett County Historical Society) lists and describes about 30 coal towns, most of which are ghosts or barely still in existence. A few places such as Kitzmiller and Bayard are still very much alive and even support post offices yet. The most interesting feature of the book is the inclusion of a large number of photographs and postcards of most of the towns - some of them taken shortly after one or another of the numerous floods that occur along this mountainous stretch of Potomac River. These coal towns seem gritty and fragile places, though stubborn in their existence: many of them could only be entered or left via the railroad. The book is an interesting look at once thriving places of not too long ago that may or may not have seen better days.