This is the second volume in the Ghost Towns of Kansas series. Originally published in 1979, this 30th anniversary reissue documents the histories of a hundred exciting Kansas ghost towns that grew, prospered, and died. This volume received numerous awards and accolades after it was released, including six related news emmy nominations and a rock album. The 30th anniversary reissue has been lovingly edited and it includes a brand new introduction by the author. The book has been out of print for over twenty years.

The steamboat was the great civilizer of the West. This transportation source was responsible for moving emigrants, settlers, and freight from the edge of the frontier. The Missouri River was the highway. For twenty years, 1840-1860, the frontier line of settlement moved up the Missouri River to the Kansas-Missouri border. Here it stopped briefly. In those two decades, a boom occurred that was fuelled by a variety of factors. Towns were established along every bend of the Missouri River that catered to the whims of everyone that stopped at their banks. This was the Golden Age of steamboat...