Relic shooting is an enjoyable hobby for most people. Few indeed are those lucky enough to ever find sufficient items worth enough to raise their standard of living or free them from their high stress jobs.
Metal detecting benefits your health tremendously. It improves your mental condition beyond belief. Relic shooting makes a person stronger in mind and body and can be great physical therapy for you and your family. Relic shooting in boom towns is all this, but even more specialized.
One of the many scenic views you will discover in parts of Northeastern Washington
For those of you that can stand high altitudes, vigorous climbs, and the all too few financial rewards this is a hobby for you. It does things for ones mental and physical being, that large sums of money could never buy. The possiblility of actually finding that big gold, silver & coin cache will always be in the back of your mind. Can any price be put on the resting time at the top of a steep mountain after a hike when one looks out across valleys, beyond the lakes & rivers, on past the thick forest to the snow capped mountains miles away? Is there a dollar value when one sees a tumbled down boom town building wrecked by nature instead of vandals?
For the family that wants a real challenge, a series of goals, dependent on one’s own time and abilities, relic shooting the boom towns offers a sport hard to compare. The limits, boundaries and goals are all set by the individual. The rewards may be few or fantastic. Careful consideration and thoughtful research improves ones chances. Those of you who plan to step from your vehicle, poke around for a few minutes and return home loaded with all sorts of "valuable relic finds" will be disappointed.
Historic abandoned ghost town
This website is for those willing to do their own thinking, researching and exploring. I hope you will see in the abandoned boom towns sites throughout Washington a loveliness & thrilling history. It is my hope that this boom town site will be valuable to those who truly like to explore the past and those who thrill in discovering themselves in the boom towns where people once lived.
I would say that there are basically three different types of boom towns. First is the community that has grown up or reastablished in or around some old boom towns, often capitalizing on the past history and glory of the original town. Winthrop, Washington in the Methow Valley would be a prime example of a healthy community that is anything but a ghost town.
Historic Winthrop Washington
Historical plaque that marks the once Boom Town site of Ruby City
The second type of site is what most folks think of when boom towns are mentioned. Deserted, shaky structures neglected and at the mercy of the elements and highly deserving of protection. This type should be given careful consideration. Unless you have special permission, as much as you like to treasure hunt, it can be more trouble then pleasure. A good example of this type of old boom town would be Bodie, Washington in the Okanogan County.
Bodie, Washington
