Boot Hill: historic graves of the Old West

by Lambert Florin

"The title of the book has used the words "Boot Hill" in their most common interpretation, this is a pioneer western cemetery. This time author Lambert Florin, author of five previous books in the Western Ghost Town Series gets down to where the ghosts really are, a book that makes you want to whistle in the dark." -from dustjacket

192 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1966

Reviews

[Loren · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not so much about what I think of as Boot Hills -- Wild West graveyards where gunslingers were buried with their boots on -- and more about the graves of settlers, ranchers, business folk, and their families. The stories, especially in the longest Oregon-focused section of the book, tend to be repetitive and, to be honest, not particularly interesting to someone with no connection to the area.

Once the book moves beyond the Pacific Northwest, it gets more intriguing. The variety of characters in the stories opens up, exploring cultures beyond white men from back East. For a book published in 1966, there's an awareness of the variety of native tribes and the shameful ways they were treated that I didn't expect to see. It's still a product of its era, but history is beginning to be reconsidered here.

Really, the best part of the book by far is its collection of luminous black & white photos. From the lone prairie graves to the toppled ghost town walls to the marble monuments sanded by the desert winds, these photographs capture the disappearing remnants of the Old West in a way that highlights their beauty and sadness. However, the captions are written in some weird shorthand that drops words in random ways. I found them highly frustrating.