Customer Reviews

Ghosts of the Old West

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"Ghosts of the Old West" is a perennial favorite at our library. Earl's Halloween talks here always drew large crowds who listened in fascination as he described hauntings at the Little Bighorn National Monument, Chico Hot Springs Resort, and many other places in the Rockies. His book is a nice mixture of historical research and eyewitness accounts of the hauntings, including some uncanny experiences of his own. Black and white photographs add to the eerie mood.

A wonderfully-told collection of ghost stories from sites scattered across the West; it was one of the first such collections published (1988) and is considered a must-have classic.

In the introduction, Murray describes some of his own experiences, such as one at an abandoned ranch on the Gallatin River, near Bozeman, Montana, in 1970, and seeing phantom Indian horsemen near Laurel, Montana. The other stories and their locations:

= Old Forts and Battlefields
1 The Phantoms of Fort Laramie: Fort Laramie National Historic Site, Wyoming - phantom soldiers and the Lady in Green
2 Visions of Reno Crossing: Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Montana- Reno Crossing and occurrences at the apartments and stone house by the cemetery
3 The Hill at Hat Creek: Hat Creek (Warbonnet Creek) State Historic Site, northwestern Nebraska - ghosts form the 1876 battle where Merritt defeated Cheyenne
4 The Blue Light Lady: Fort Hays State Historic Site, Kansas - legend of Elizabeth Polly who died in 1867 and haunts the site; other spirits as well

= Old Hotels and Mansions
5 The Legacy of Winchester Mansion: the story of the obsession of Sarah Winchester in continually building on her San Jose, California, mansion to avoid the vindictive spirits killed by the Winchester firearms
6 The Hot Springs Phantom: Chico Hot Springs, near Pray, Montana haunted by proprieters Bill and Percie Knowles
7 The Lost Trail Hotel: a haunted hotel in the Arizona desert near the Mexican border
8 The Cries of Millie Pratt: The Old Pratt Hotel in Empire, Colorado is haunted by little Millie Pratt and others
9 The Ghost in the Sheridan Inn: This hotel in Sheridan, Wyoming is haunted by Miss Kate Arnold
10 The Gambler: The St. James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico has had many famous historical figures stay there, and some of their ghosts remain to this day

= Old Trails and Ghost Towns
11 The Mysteries of Old Garnet: The ghost town of Garnet, Montana is full of people you cannot see
12 La Llorona--The Weeping Woman: The famous lady of the Hispanic people of Mexico and the Southwest roams many places, including this account of her sightings along the Santa Fe River, Santa Fe, New Mexico
13 Night of the Iron Horse: Sinks of Dove Creek - Kelton, Utah, near Golden Spike National Historic Site - incidents with ghost trains and the spirits of Chinese railroad workers
14 The Cabin in Brown's Park: a shadowy presence in a one-time hideaway of the outlaw Butch Cassidy along the Green River of northwestern Colorado
15 The Wolf Girl of Texas: a legend of a girl who lived among the wolves of the Devil's River, not far from Del Rio, Texas, and the seeming return of her spirit
16 The Shadows in Scapponia Park: the ghosts of a man and his dog haunt a small isolated campground on the Nehalem River in Oregon

= Native American Spiritualism
17 The Mystery of the Little People: The Crow knew them well, the Little People of the Pryor Mountains of Montana...and a tiny mummy found in the Pedro Mountains near Casper, Wyoming
18 Secrets of the Desert: Recollections of an archaeologist who worked with the Papago tribe on sites in Arizona such as Ventana Cave
19 The Face of the Wolf: a tale of religious conflict and the old ways among the Jicarilla Apache of New Mexico
20 The Snake People: The story of a feared giant supernatural snake somewhere in the Central Rockies (perhaps Colorado or New Mexico) and the hybrid people who worship it
21 The Face: A haunted tribal building in Poplar, Montana on the Fort Peck Reservation
22 Sacred Ground: two stories of what happens when people disturb Indian burials, along the Tongue River and in the path of a county road, in Montana and Wyoming
23 Night of the Blizzard: Three Indian ghost men help a woman in a storm near Wounded Knee, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota

A wonderful variety of tales by a master storyteller!

I bought this for a camping trip and it provided some excellent stories for the kids. Well written with nice details.

I first encountered this book a number of years ago and have recommended it to friends ever since----especially those of the paranormal-interest persuasion. The only thing I found wrong with it was its complete lack of documentation for the incidents recounted (although Murray---now deceased---was KNOWN for his veracity as a reporter). A well respected Western novelist, Murray had close connections to Indian people and knew a lot of things that many "rationalist" so-called "experts" on things weren't always privy to. It has always been my impression that (like Louis L'Amour) if Earl Murray told you something happened you could pretty much bank on it being a true account of something that actually "went down". Murray provides no source bilbliography or documentary footnoting here, but many of these tales---though not all---DO turn up in other books, where they ARE footnoted and acknowledged. Two of these accounts, "The Face of the Wolf", and, particularly, "The Snake People", will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. This little volume is just GOOD!
Ferociously entertaining-----and you will NEVER forget "The Snake People".

I haven't.

Interestingly, when this book first came out in 1988 from Contemporary Books, it had a sizable photo section that featured buildings and personalities talked about in the text. That photo section is now gone from this newer revised edition...BUT
there has been an excellent trade-off for it: THREE ENTIRELY NEW CHAPTERS that weren't included in 1988 (at that time the book ended with "The Snake People"). I have to say, I find this extra new material QUITE satisfying. It makes a good book even better!