Special Assignment: Nevada Ghost Towns, Revisiting Our Father's Favorite Haunts

(SACRAMENTO, CA) - My brothers, Ken and Rick King, along with my nephew, Nory King and I, are heading to Nevada to uphold an important King family tradition, that is exploring old Nevada ghost towns.

Our father, Charles King, took my mom, Nellie King, and my brothers and I, on many trips to Nevada. We would explore old towns, mostly ruins, and visit really off the beaten path locations, sometimes we would not see anyone outside of our camping party for a week or more. My father grew up in Los Angeles and was fortunate to make many trips to Nevada, even when some of today's 'ghost' towns and mines were still populated and operating.

He knew a great deal about the Silver State's early mining history and the abandoned towns in the mountains near Reno are a great example of the places we enjoyed the most. He shared great stories about his adventures long ago, they stayed in our minds forever and this weekend we will attempt to revisit those places that mean a great deal to us collectively.

We will visit a number of locations near Virginia City, and we will stay at a hotel in Gold Hill reputed to be haunted by the ghosts of miners. In fact we will be in one of the rooms where the hauntings take place, so we understand.

Just outside the door of our room is a massive headframe for a mine that was thriving when it experienced a massive methane explosion. This started a fire that burned underground for three months, we are told by the hotel manager. I'm told at least 37 miners burned to death and the mine was eventually filled, their remains never recovered.

The hotel facility has been open continuously since 1859. Our room is the former miner's changing shed, where they changed clothes before starting shifts in the mine. It is a somber story.

I look forward to sharing photos I will gather this weekend and possibly video, it is something we have looked forward to for a long time.

With almost 25 years of experience on the west coast and worldwide as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor, Tim King is Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by the The Red Cross.

Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu

In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide.