Exploring The Ghost Town Desert: A Guide to the Rand Mining Area, its Natural and Historic Points of Interest by Suzanne Knudson, Roberta Martin Starry (1999) Paperback

New Second EditionThe weekend explorer will find a fascinating area of California's rich gold rush history--The Rand Mining District--two hours north of Los Angeles. This is an area of wealth painfully scratched from the earth and all quickly lost, an era of ne'er-do-wells and dreamers, the lucky and the desperate. Here is a newly-revised and reworked edition of a popular guide to this fascinating mining district. Splendidly Illustrated This book includes nine road maps to fascinating trips in the area, and 25 pages of photographs, including rare historic views. An Historic Guide to the Area as well as a Road Guide for the Car This book encompasses a roughly rectangular territory from Red Rock Canyon on the west to the Pinnacles on the east. Within this area lie hundreds of mines, camps and diggings from by-gone days. Silent sentinels marking the hopes and dreams of the thousands of men who sought their fortune in the blazing sun of the eastern Mojave Desert. Fro

Roberta Martin Starry has explored, painted, photographed, and written about the California, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon backcountry for the past 50 years. She also gave lectures and tours for students, youth groups, and museum members on the history, geology and flora of the eastern Kern County.

Now retired, Roberta Martin Starry had for many years been the Rand area correspondent for "the Bakersfield California". A member of Western Writers of America, she was also a free-lance writer with articles and photos appearing in many national publications including: The West, Collector's World, National Park Magazine, Mother Earth News and American Gold News. Articles and photos were used in regional publications including: Desert Magazine, Nevada and California Supplements. Through the years, her photographs of desert subjects, paintings and historical articles have won numerous awards.

Suzanne Knudson is by training an anthropologist, with a specialization in historical archaeology. Currently a community college professor, she has also traveled extensively throughout the United States, and has visited historic sites around the world. She has done field work in the Middle East, Utah, Virigina and California and has conducted summer educational programs for secondary education students at historic sites in Virginia. She is presently involved in an historical survey of the Carson and Colorado railroad right of way, and in an historic restoration project in the ghost town of Garlock, California.