Brent Underwood bought Cerro Gordo, an abandoned 1800s mining town in California, and turned the project of restoring it into one of the more unlikely social media success stories in recent years. When Brent Underwood joined Sean Kelly on the Digital Social Hour, he walked through how a real estate purchase turned into a full-time mission.
The conversation covers the practical challenges of rebuilding a ghost town, the local history and stories that came with it, and how Underwood turned that process into content that reached a massive online audience.
About Brent Underwood
Brent Underwood is an entrepreneur best known for purchasing and restoring Cerro Gordo, a 19th-century mining town located in the mountains above California's Owens Valley. He has documented the restoration on YouTube under Ghost Town Living, chronicling everything from digging out old mine shafts to rebuilding structures on the property.
What began as a preservation project has grown into a tourism destination and media property, with Underwood building an audience around the history, isolation, and day-to-day realities of reviving a town that had been left to decay for decades.
What Brent Underwood and Sean Kelly Talked About
- How Brent Underwood came to purchase and take on the restoration of Cerro Gordo
- The practical challenges of rebuilding infrastructure in a remote, abandoned mining town
- How documenting the restoration on YouTube turned into a viral social media following
- Underwood's account of ghost stories and local lore tied to the town's mining history
- His approach to balancing historic preservation with building a tourist destination
- What Underwood has learned about entrepreneurship through an unconventional, hands-on project
- How the isolation of living at Cerro Gordo shaped his day-to-day routine and mindset
Why This Conversation Matters
Brent Underwood's story is proof that a genuinely unusual idea, restoring a forgotten ghost town, can become both a serious historic preservation effort and a media phenomenon. It's the kind of build-it-yourself story that fits naturally alongside the entrepreneurial conversations the Digital Social Hour features.
_editorial_flag: The brief's chapter timestamps for this episode appear to reference a different guest's content (Graham Hancock-related topics); prose was written from the episode description and title only, which consistently describe Brent Underwood and Cerro Gordo.
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube
Related Digital Social Hour Episodes
About Sean Kelly & the Digital Social Hour
Sean Kelly is an entrepreneur and the host of the Digital Social Hour, one of the fastest-growing interview podcasts in the world, where he sits down with entrepreneurs, athletes, creators, and cultural voices for candid, long-form conversations. The show draws over 100 million views a month across platforms. Explore more guest features on SeanKelly.io.
About The Author
