Nevada Ghost Towns Photograph Collection

S. Martin "Marty" Shelton served in the United States Naval Reserve and traveled throughout Nevada. His interest in the state's history led him to take photographs of the historic sites and ghost towns he saw during his visits, some places more than once. He used his camera to document the sites as well as the changes to abandoned buildings or mining camps that had occurred from his previous visits. Due to his military credentials, he was able to enter military installations, such as Nellis Air Force Base, and visit sites where civilians were otherwise barred. Over the course of about 20 years, he documented over 1,300 sites, producing slides and mainly black and white prints.

By the late 1990s, Shelton approached the University of Nevada Press with an idea to publish a hardcover book with explanatory materials and some of the key photographs, issued with a CD which would include all the photographs and captions in a database. The book's title was A Catalog of Ghost Town, Mining Camps, and Historic Sites of Nevada and he completed the draft in 2001. At that time, many book publishers were issuing books with CDs, but the trend was short lived, and the Press did not undertake the project.

In 2003, Shelton's extensive documentary photograph collection and text of his proposed book on historic Nevada sites was donated to the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office. The collection was available to researchers interested in these areas, with several previously unrecorded sites that Shelton discovered. Due to administrative changes in the Historic Preservation Office, it became impossible to maintain the collection there; the collection was then accepted by the Special Collections Department at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Shelton retired as a Captain from the Naval Reserve and lives in Texas.