Thematic index
Company Ghost Towns
Towns owned outright by a single company — the store, the houses, the water, the paychecks. When the company failed or left, the town had no reason to exist by design.
Glastenbury, VT
1761–1937Vanished Place
A logged-out mountain town at the center of Vermont's disappearance lore.
Batsto, NJ
1766–1876Historic Townsite
The Pine Barrens iron town that armed Washington's army.
Scull Shoals, GA
1784–1925Vanished Place
Georgia's first paper mill — brick ruins in the forest telling an erosion parable.
Matildaville, VA
1790–1828Vanished Place
George Washington's canal town — ruins fifteen miles from the Capitol.
Daniels, MD
1810–1972Vanished Place
A Patapsco mill town evicted by its owner, then finished by Hurricane Agnes.
Feltville, NJ
1845–1916Historic Townsite
'The Deserted Village' — a mill town, then a resort, preserved in the Watchung woods.
Eckley Miners' Village, PA
1854–1970Historic Townsite
North America's most complete anthracite patch town — saved by a film crew.
Ellaville, FL
1861–1942Vanished Place
A governor's sawmill empire at the Suwannee — Florida's forest reclaimed it whole.
Fayette, MI
1867–1891Historic Townsite
An iron-smelting village on a Lake Michigan harbor — preserved almost whole.
Nuttallburg, WV
1870–1958Historic Townsite
The most complete coal works in West Virginia — once owned by Henry Ford.
Livermore, NH
1876–1938Vanished Place
A White Mountains logging town the Saunders family owned outright.
Griffin, NY
1880–1920Vanished Place
An Adirondack tannery town that died when the hemlock bark gave out.
Gilman, CO
1886–1984Verified Ghost Town
A zinc-mining town on a cliff edge, emptied by federal order — and strictly off-limits.
Terlingua, TX
1888–1946Near-Abandoned
A mercury-mining ruin near Big Bend that came partway back to life.
Thurber, TX
1888–1936Historic Townsite
Texas's great coal-and-brick company town — 8,000 people owned lock, stock, and payroll.
Longleaf, LA
1892–1969Historic Townsite
The most complete historic sawmill in the South, kept whole as a museum.
Holden, WA
1896–1957Verified Ghost Town
A copper company town in the North Cascades, reachable only by boat and foot.
Ludlow, CO
1896–1954Vanished Place
The company town where the 1914 massacre changed American labor history.
Berlin, NV
1897–1911Verified Ghost Town
A company mining camp preserved whole — with ichthyosaurs buried next door.
Buxton, IA
1900–1927Vanished Place
Iowa's Black utopia — a coal town of 5,000 built on rare racial harmony, now bare farmland.
Dawson, NM
1901–1950Vanished Place
Nine thousand people, two of America's worst mine disasters, one field of white crosses.
Barthell, KY
1902–1953Historic Townsite
The first Stearns coal camp — rebuilt board by board as a living museum.
Kennecott, AK
1903–1938Verified Ghost Town
The richest copper strike ever found — a 14-story red mill in the Alaska wilderness.
Mortimer, NC
1904–1940Verified Ghost Town
A logging town drowned twice by the same creek.
Le Hunt, KS
1905–1918Vanished Place
A cement company town swallowed by the woods above Elk City Lake.
Henry River Mill Village, NC
1905–1970Historic Townsite
A cotton-mill village turned District 12 — the Hunger Games ghost town.
Sasco, AZ
1907–1921Verified Ghost Town
A company smelter town named by acronym, its stack still standing in the desert.
Elkmont, TN
1908–1992Historic Townsite
Logging camp, then society resort, then the Smokies' famous firefly ghost town.
Swansea, AZ
1909–1937Verified Ghost Town
A Welsh-named copper smelter town, adobe rows baking in the Sonoran outback.
Sego, UT
1910–1955Verified Ghost Town
A coal camp up a canyon of ancient rock art — company store still standing.
Concrete City, PA
1911–1924Verified Ghost Town
A model workers' village of poured concrete — too tough even to demolish.
Antioch, NE
1916–1930Vanished Place
The Sandhills' four-year potash boom — concrete ruins where 2,000 people lived.
Two Guns, AZ
1922–1971Vanished Place
A Route 66 tourist trap with a dark canyon past — zoo cages and all.
Uravan, CO
1936–1986Vanished Place
The uranium town so contaminated it was erased from the map — literally.
Blue Heron, KY
1937–1962Historic Townsite
A coal camp rebuilt as ghosts on purpose — steel outlines where the houses stood.
Igloo, SD
1942–1967Vanished Place
A World War II ammunition depot town of 4,200, built and emptied by the Army.
Zzyzx, CA
1944–1974Historic Townsite
A radio evangelist's mineral-springs resort, named to be the last word in the dictionary.
Eagle Mountain, CA
1948–1983Verified Ghost Town
Kaiser Steel's model desert town — 4,000 people, gone with American steel.
Jeffrey City, WY
1957–1982Near-Abandoned
A Cold War uranium boomtown that lost 95 percent of its people in three years.