Ghost Town Living

Informationen zum Autor Brent Underwood is the owner of Cerro Gordo, an original boomtown silver mine, established in 1865. Brent currently lives on a mountain above Death Valley with no running water, seven cats, six goats, and at least one ghost. Klappentext A long-abandoned silver mine for sale sounded like an adventure too great to pass up, but it turned into much morea calling, a community of millions, and hard-earned lessons about chasing impractical dreams. The siren song of Cerro Gordo, a desolate ghost town perched high above Death Valley, has seduced thousands since the 1800s, but few fell harder for it than Brent Underwood, who moved there in March of 2020, only to be immediately snowed in and trapped for weeks. It had once been the largest silver mine in California. Over $500 million worth of ore was pulled from the miles of tunnels below the town. Butch Cassidy, Mark Twain, and other infamous characters of the American West were rumored to have stayed there. Newspapers reported a murder a week. But that was over 150 years ago. Underwood bet his life savingsand his lifeon this majestic, hardscrabble town that had broken its fair share of ambitious men and women. What followed were fires, floods, earthquakes, and perhaps strangest, fame. Ghost Town Living tells the story of a man against the elements, a forgotten historic place against the modern world, and a dream against all oddsone that has captured millions of followers around the world. He came looking for a challenge different from the traditional 9-5 job but discovered something much more fulfillingan undertaking that would call on all of himself and push him beyond what he knew he was capable of. In fact, to bring this abandoned town back to life, Brent had to learn a wealth of new self-sufficiency and problem-solving skills from many generous mentors. Ghost Town Living is a thrilling read, but it's also a call to actionto question our too-practical lives and instead seek adventure, build something original, redefine work, and embrace the unknown. It shows what it means to dedicate your life to something, to take a mighty swing at a crazy idea and, like the cardsharps who once haunted Cerro Gordo, go all in. Zusammenfassung A long-abandoned silver mine for sale sounded like an adventure too great to pass up, but it turned into much morea calling, a community of millions, and hard-earned lessons about chasing impractical dreams. The siren song of Cerro Gordo, a desolate ghost town perched high above Death Valley, has seduced thousands since the 1800s, but few fell harder for it than Brent Underwood, who moved there in March of 2020, only to be immediately snowed in and trapped for weeks. It had once been the largest silver mine in California. Over $500 million worth of ore was pulled from the miles of tunnels below the town. Butch Cassidy, Mark Twain, and other infamous characters of the American West were rumored to have stayed there. Newspapers reported a murder a week. But that was over 150 years ago. Underwood bet his life savingsand his lifeon this majestic, hardscrabble town that had broken its fair share of ambitious men and women. What followed were fires, floods, earthquakes, and perhaps strangest, fame. Ghost Town Living tells the story of a man against the elements, a forgotten historic place against the modern world, and a dream against all oddsone that has captured millions of followers around the world. He came looking for a challenge different from the traditional 9-5 job but discovered something much more fulfillingan undertaking that would call on all of himself and push him beyond what he knew he was capable of. In fact, to bring this abandoned town back to life, Brent had to learn a wealth of new self-sufficiency and problem-solving skills from many generous mentors. Ghost Town Living...

Auteur
Brent Underwood is the owner of Cerro Gordo, an original boomtown silver mine, established in 1865. Brent currently lives on a mountain above Death Valley with no running water, seven cats, six goats, and at least one ghost.

Résumé
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A long-abandoned silver mine for sale sounded like an adventure too great to pass up, but it turned into much more—a calling, a community of millions, and hard-earned lessons about chasing impractical dreams.

“Inspiring and meditative—the story of man vs nature and man vs himself.”—Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obstacle is the Way

The siren song of Cerro Gordo, a desolate ghost town perched high above Death Valley, has seduced thousands since the 1800s, but few fell harder for it than Brent Underwood, who moved there in March of 2020, only to be immediately snowed in and trapped for weeks.

It had once been the largest silver mine in California. Over $500 million worth of ore was pulled from the miles of tunnels below the town. Butch Cassidy, Mark Twain, and other infamous characters of the American West were rumored to have stayed there. Newspapers reported a murder a week. But that was over 150 years ago.

Underwood bet his life savings—and his life—on this majestic, hardscrabble town that had broken its fair share of ambitious men and women. What followed were fires, floods, earthquakes, and perhaps strangest, fame. Ghost Town Living tells the story of a man against the elements, a forgotten historic place against the modern world, and a dream against all odds—one that has captured millions of followers around the world.

He came looking for a challenge different from the traditional 9-5 job but discovered something much more fulfilling—an undertaking that would call on all of himself and push him beyond what he knew he was capable of. In fact, to bring this abandoned town back to life, Brent had to learn a wealth of new self-sufficiency and problem-solving skills from many generous mentors.

Ghost Town Living is a thrilling read, but it’s also a call to action—to question our too-practical lives and instead seek adventure, build something original, redefine work, and embrace the unknown. It shows what it means to dedicate your life to something, to take a mighty swing at a crazy idea and, like the cardsharps who once haunted Cerro Gordo, go all in.

Échantillon de lecture
**Chapter 1

Pick Your Spot and Swing

It started as a pretty straightforward task.

William “Burro” Schmidt, a prospector, was tired of bringing his gold ore around a mountain, so he decided to go through it. In the spring of 1900, in the El Paso Mountains of the Mojave Desert, Schmidt began to chip away every day at solid granite using a pick, a shovel, and a four-pound hammer. When enough broken rock accumulated by his feet, he’d carry it out, first on his back in a canvas sack, and later in a wheelbarrow.

He’d come to the desert of California to save his life. Six of his siblings had died of tuberculosis back home in Rhode Island. Doctors, in their primitive ways then, had prescribed a hotter climate to avoid the same fate. Never one for half measures, Schmidt picked the hottest, driest desert in all of North America to stake his claim.

He reimagined himself as a prospector, a frugal one at that. He reinforced the toes of his boots with discarded tin cans and patched his tattered, greasy trousers with old flour sacks.

If you visit the tunnel, as I have, you begin to get a sense of the man, the compromises he was willing to make, and the ones he refused to. The first thing you notice about Schmidt’s tunnel is that the farther back you walk, the lower the ceilings become. At 6’2” I stand comfortably at the beginning of the tunnel. A few hundred yards in, I have to bend down to avoid hitting my he…