Drawbridge, California
California’s only bay ghost town — a railroad-built duck-hunting resort now sinking into the tidal marsh of the southern San Francisco Bay, watched over by a wildlife refuge and closed to the public.
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Allensworth, California: The Town Built for Freedom
Allensworth, California was the only town in the state founded, financed, and governed entirely by African Americans. A visionary freedom colony undone by water loss and a railroad bypass, it survives today as a California state historic park.
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Little Valley, Utah: The Industrial Boomtown Built to Cross a Lake
Little Valley was a company town engineered from nothing on the Great Salt Lake shore — a 1,300-person industrial camp that built the causeway carrying the Southern Pacific across the lake, then vanished within months of finishing the job in 1959.
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Thistle Ghost Town, Utah: The Railroad Town Erased by America’s Costliest Landslide
In April 1983, a record snowmelt triggered a massive landslide in Spanish Fork Canyon that dammed the Spanish Fork River and submerged the railroad town of Thistle, Utah — the costliest landslide in U.S. history.
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Piedmont Ghost Town, Wyoming: The Town That Helped Build a Railroad
Home › Wyoming Ghost Towns › Piedmont Ghost Town Piedmont Ghost Town, Wyoming: Charcoal Kilns, Butch Cassidy, and the Town That Helped Build a Railroad Wyoming Railroad Free to visit · ~14 min read Quick facts Initial settlement~1867 Formally founded1869 Original nameByrne Founded byMoses Byrne & Charles Guild Primary industriesRailroad helper engines, charcoal production Peak…
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Thurmond, West Virginia: The Coal Town That Died When Steam Did
Home › West Virginia Ghost Towns › Thurmond Thurmond, West Virginia: The Coal Town That Out-Earned Cincinnati and Died When Steam Did West Virginia Coal Mining Free to visit · ~13 min read Quick facts Founded1873 (land surveyed by Capt. Thurmond) Peak population~500 (early 1900s) Current population3–5 residents Peak freight revenue$4,824,911 (highest on C&O mainline)…
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Terrace Ghost Town, Utah: The Railroad Town That Vanished When the Trains Stopped
Home › Utah Ghost Towns › Terrace Ghost Town Terrace Ghost Town, Utah: The Railroad Town That Vanished When the Trains Stopped Utah Railroad BLM backcountry · ~16 min read Quick facts EstablishedApril 1869 Founded byCentral Pacific Railroad Peak recorded population350 (1879) Chinese residents (1880 census)54 recorded Primary purposeRailroad maintenance & repair hub Key infrastructure16-stall…
