Ghost Towns of America - An Official TransCyberian Express Station Stop

Americans love their ghost towns...

America's ghost towns are real-life relics of folklore and legend. They recall how good times turned bad and how dreams became nightmares. Most resulted when natural resources were depleted by greedy prospectors. Others resulted from environmental disasters.

Modern ghost towns have become rare in the United States but history does repeat itself occasionally. Much of the Gulf Coast region that was devastated by hurricane Katrina in 2005, including large sections of New Orleans, remain uninhabited due to poor planning, bad economics, and a slow governmental response.

Nationwide, lessons learned are being ignored and the good times of recent decades are quickly turning bad for far too many Americans.

The possibility of an unprecedented economic depression looms overhead. Now, more than ever, the lessons learned from America's ghost towns are paramount. For now, at least, many American ghost towns are thriving as tourist attractions and resorts.

"Ghost Towns of America" features the greatest ghost towns of America's Old West as well as ghost towns from all over the United States. Included are abandoned towns, almost-abandoned towns, resurrected towns, and haunted ghost towns.

The greatest American ghost towns have compelling histories...

Suggested additions to this list are always welcome.

Welcome!

According to the American History and Genealogy Project, a true ghost town exhibits one or more of the following characteristics:

It is a formerly inhabited area containing random debris or dense overgrowth

It has structures which have been partially destroyed

It is an abandoned community containing buildings which have been sealed off

It is an inhabited community containing many abandoned buildings

It is an historic community whose economy and population is much smaller than it once was

It is a restored historic community that was once abandoned or almost abandoned

American ghost town folklore is usually associated with the Wild West... and Tombstone, Arizona represents the ultimate American ghost town. True ghost towns, however, are just memories and Tombstone was never abandoned. America's landscape is dotted with thousands of abandoned towns and, if they could speak, they'd be screaming colorful tales of broken promises and shattered dreams.

Of course, ghost towns have existed all over the globe since cave man days, and America's ghost towns are not limited to the Old West.

Most of the towns lining historic Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles suffered greatly when they were bypassed by the Interstate highway system during the last few decades. Many became ghost towns in the blink of an eye. The rediscovery of Old West ghost towns and Route 66 marks a turning point. Americans are realizing that their future lies within their past.

That startling revelation has immense implications for America's future as communities have recently been abandoned due to natural disasters, environmental poisoning, and political dysfunction.

Ghost Town Factoids:

Saloons far outnumbered schools, churches, and businesses in many western ghost towns. It was common for a town with a population of 20,000 to have 50 saloons

Upon the abandonment of many western towns, wooden buildings were dismantled and railroad tracks pulled up from the ground so that they could be reused during the establishment of new towns

Water was more expensive than liquor in many western desert towns

The most common reason that American communities have become ghost towns is that they were either bypassed by transportation routes, their sources of income & water were exhausted, disasters occurred, their post offices closed, or they were not given county seat status

"Ghost towning" is a gaining in popularity as a hobby

Ghost towns east of the Mississippi River seem to be more susceptible to hauntings and other paranormal phenomena than ghost town located west of the Mississippi River

Most American ghost towns are former mining towns or former logging towns

Many western ghost towns had a Chinatown section

Although there are hundreds of ghost towns east of the Mississippi River, most American ghost towns lie west of the Mississippi

California has almost twice as many ghost towns than any other state

The 1849 California Gold Rush established San Francisco as the west's financial and cultural capital

The 1859 Colorado Gold Rush created Denver, Colorado

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