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He Bought A Ghost Town And Became A YouTube Star - EP 91 Brent Underwood

October 7, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In 2018, Brent Underwood was running a bed-and-breakfast in Austin, Texas, and working with Ryan Holiday at Daily Stoic when a friend texted him a real estate listing as a joke: “buy your own ghost town for under a million dollars.” Underwood flew out the next day. The property was Cerro Gordo, California, a former silver mining town that had been the largest silver mine in the state in the 1800s, with 4,000 people living there at its peak. He did not have nearly enough money, but he scraped together funding from hard-money lenders and friends—hanging up on anyone who asked too many questions—and closed on Friday the 13th. The caretaker handed him a keyring with 80 keys and said “good luck.” Underwood planned to commute from Austin on weekends. Then March 2020 hit, he moved up full-time during the pandemic, and six years later he has sold everything in Austin and lives there permanently.

The Operating Reality of a Ghost Town

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:03) **Host Introduction & The Premise** - Host Ashley Vance sets up the episode: buying a ghost town near Death Valley.
  • 2 (02:13) **Brent Underwood Arrives & The Origin Story** - Brent describes how he found and purchased Cerro Gordo.
  • 3 (10:05) **The Town's Layout & The American Hotel Fire** - A description of the physical town and the pivotal setback of the hotel burning down.
  • 4 (14:34) **The Operator's Mindset: Blue-Collar Roots & Intellectual Rigor** - Brent explains how he balances manual labor with deep historical research.
  • 5 (17:36) **Building a YouTube Channel & the Feedback Loop** - How the YouTube channel evolved from a hobby into a powerful research tool.
  • 6 (22:44) **Exploring the Mine: Curiosity Over Fear** - Brent describes his solo expeditions into the 900-foot-deep, 30-mile mine shaft.
  • 7 (28:27) **Life in a Ghost Town: Hardship vs. Romance** - Brent paints a picture of the brutal reality of life for the original miners.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

This week’s guest is Brent Underwood, the proud owner of Cerro Gordo Mines.

That’s right. In 2018, Underwood bought the ghost town of Cerro Gordo, located near Death Valley in California, and its old mining operations for $1.4 million. This was a legit crazy thing to do. But, here we are eight years later, and Underwood has turned his sidequest into his mainquest, and he now has a booming YouTube channel in which he documents life at Cerro Gordo. This includes exploration of the mines and Underwood’s attempt to restore the ghost town into a habitable site that people can visit.

You will notice (if you’re viewing instead of just listening) that the set for this podcast is awesome. That’s because we went to visit Underwood a couple of months back for this podcast and for a video that will be coming out on our own booming YouTube channel.

We spent a couple of nights at Cerro Gordo, living in an old miner’s house, and we explored the grounds with Underwood.

As you’ll hear in this episode, Cerro Gordo was a long-running silver mine and, at its peak, had 4,000 people living in the mountains and working the many miles of mines. It’s quite well preserved. You can see the old brothel, theater, and store. And Underwood has been rebuilding the American Hotel that once served as the centerpiece of the town.

Underwood does crazy things at Cerro Gordo. He’ll lower himself down the main mine shaft and then spend days underground. He’s used his exploring to help build out the history of Cerro Gordo and wrote an amazing book about Cerro Gordo and his adventures. You should probably buy it and read it.

We obviously get into all of the above with Underwood, who is a wonderful storyteller and a good dude.

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Timestamps

0:00 Intro4:53 How to Buy a Town11:29 The American Hotel Burns17:36 Hi

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