ABANDONED PLACES MOVIE

Today the town is a National Historic Site protected by the California parks system. As the gold vanished, so did the townsfolk. By 1880, the town consisted of 2,000 buildings, including roughly 200 restaurants. Bodey discovered gold in the area, the original camp of around 20 miners mushroomed to some 10,000 during the California Gold Rush-roughly the same population as Los Angeles.

ABANDONED PLACES MOVIE

Like a straight-up Western movie set, Bodie is one of the most famous (and the largest) unreconstructed ghost towns in America. Bodie is in a permanent state of “arrested decay.” | Jnjphotos/Shutterstock Elmo comes to life, but some prefer to visit in the wintertime when roads and trails are truly abandoned. Most tourists stop in during warmer months when St. Present-day visitors can tour the old mining roads by ATV, fish along Chalk Creek, stay in a historic cabin, and shop from a general store that’s open through the summer. Several original structures are still intact, providing an unfiltered glimpse into life during the mining boom (one big exception is the town hall, which had to be rebuilt in 2008 following a particularly destructive blaze). Elmo remains one of America’s best-preserved ghost towns. The dedicated few that stuck around suffered another loss 30 years later when the postmaster died and postal service was discontinued, further sequestering them from civilization.ĭespite numerous fires charring the canyon over the years, St.

With the price of silver already down, the last remaining rail service stopped in 1922. When the Alpine Tunnel closed in 1910, however, the music stopped. It had almost 2,000 residents and more than 150 mines-plus enough inns and dance halls to keep everybody in town happily cutting a rug. Elmo was once a highfalutin gold mining town and popular whistle-stop on the Pacific Railroad. | Flickr/Terra Trekkingįounded in 1880, St. Cruise through the old mining roads by ATV. The iconic red mill on the hill spans 14 stories above a glacier and can be explored by visitors who take the official Kennecott Mill Town Tour. Elias National Park, which doesn’t charge an entrance fee. Today, it’s a National Historic Landmark-and one of Alaska’s most popular points of interest-in the heart of the massive Wrangell-St. By 1938, however, the copper supply was running low enough that the mines shuttered. One of Kennecott’s five mines contained the world’s richest copper concentration (they named the claim 'Bonanza'). Morgan and the Guggenheims-they turned the place into a “self-contained company town,” complete with a tennis court and skating rink. Within a few years-and with the help of J.P. They formed what was then called the Utah Copper Company in 1903. Copper lured brave miners to this remote Alaskan spot in the early 1900s after two prospectors stumbled upon what turned out to be $200 million worth of the metal while resting their horses. And if you’re really curious, some even have inns so you can spend the night and decide for yourself whether the town is haunted.Īll that glitters may not be gold, but it can still make you a fortune. Many are so perfectly preserved-furniture, dishes, and more exactly where they were left-that they feel like dusty time capsules from a century ago. You can visit most of them today, but be careful what you touch.

Once bustling with riches and rascals, these 14 hamlets are now eerily desolate.

Hell, some ghost towns are reported to have literal ghosts roaming through the wreckage. These skeletons of the past could be sets for the next Coen Brothers Western-and at least one has already inspired a chilling horror flick. Others were capitals that fell victim to nature and fate. Some began as lucrative mining communities that evaporated almost overnight, and some are casualties of new railways and interstates. Sure, America’s ghost towns come with some pretty crazy backstories, but abandoned towns carry even more mystery. This is the story of countless boom towns during the Gold Rush when mines dried up and when Gilded Age industrial sites collapsed-and it’s a big reason why America is dotted with so many abandoned towns built during the 19th and 20th centuries. But when the riches run out-or were never there at all-it’s time to pick up and move on to the next. Everyone’s chasing riches in the land of opportunity.

Abandoned places