Name that Ghost Town #2

[nerudite]

This town used to be "the Queen of the Desert". The town was laid out in 1905. In just two years from its first planning stages, the town had over 6000 citizens and featured a telephone exchange, three water companies, ice plants, electric street lights, hotels, three railroads, four banks, two churches, numerous saloons, symphony orchestra, four newspapers, two locally printed magazines, a public swimming pool, and many fine stone and wooden homes. The town lasted only 15 years.

Bank:

Train Station:

School House:

Bottle Building:

Bottle Building Detail (just because it's cool):

 

[PlannerGirl]

what happend to it to make them leave in 15 years? Looks like a nice place

 

[BKM]

I'm pretty sure its in Nevada. I can't remember specifically where. The bottle building is cool!

Is it a "nice place"? Look at that barren landscape-no more ore, no more reason to stay.

Just like Bodie-the most severe climate in the State!

 

[donk]

is it rhyolite, (SP?) nevada?

 

[nerudite]

Correct!!!!

The ghost town is one of the best planning lessons. It seems that the town was built purely on speculation, grew to 10,000 people in a few years and then within another few years folded.

Good job, donk!

 

[donk]

I'll try to find one that is canadian, interesting and not too difficult to find on the web. To figure this one out I googled "bottle house ghost town" and up it popped.

 

[nerudite]

Yeah... I made it pretty easy... but the bottle house is the only thing I could remember from when I went there when I was 8 or 9. Something about a house made out of 10,000 beer bottles sticks in your mind.

Rhyolite and Bodie are the only two mining ghost towns I've been to. Well, other than Calico, which was a ghost town and now it's a tourist attraction.

Some of the other interesting places are on Highway 66, off I-10 in the Mojave... all the towns that used to be on a main drag that were suddenly without traffic when the new highway was built. One particuarly good section of Hwy 66 goes through four or five of them between San Bernadino and Barstow: including Goffs and Essex (although I think there are technically people still living in/around both towns).

 

[BKM]

While not really "ghost towns," there are some really neat towns along U.S. 50 in Nevada "The World's Loneliest Highway." I like Austin and Eureka a lot.

There is also a cool little ruin of a town on the edge of the Central Valley named "Hornitos." It was the home of Joaquim Murrieta, a famous bandit.

The saddest thing to me (I'm a big anti-casino snob) is to see the prostitution of the old Colorado mining towns into gaudy gambling dens. Yuck!

 

[Cardinal]

Rhyolite is another favorite of mine. I've spent a good deal of time on vacations hunting out old ghost towns. There was one a couple, three miles from my first job in Wisconsin. The only thing left of it was a cenetery and the old school, though. Several of the homes had been moved to nearby communities.

 

[Jeff]

??

Can you like, just move into a Ghost Town and claim it as yours?

I'm looking to get my foot in the door in politics. Maybe I'll call myself the mayor of Rhyolite.

 

[Cardinal]

While many are owned by states or the feds, most ghost towns are privately held. A large number are mining or lumber towns that were built as company towns. I have even come across a couple WWII POW camps. Of course, most are not maintained, and most have decayed to the point that there is little left except a cemetery, foundations, and a few other more durable remnants. The ones in the basin tend to have survived a bit better because of the dry atmosphere. The wood doesn't rot as fast.

 

[nerudite]

I almost posted pictures of Manzanar in Inyo County, CA. Very interesting (and sad) place.

 

[Cardinal]

I almost posted pictures of Manzanar in Inyo County, CA. Very interesting (and sad) place.

Do tell.

 

[nerudite]

Do tell.

Manzanar was a very large internment camp (I don't know if it's PC to still call it that) in the Owen's Valley near the town of Independence. Approximately 10,000 persons with Japanese ancestry were held there during WWII. It is a unique site as internment camps go because it had the only water filtering and sewage system and it had an orphanage. It's now a National Historic Site. There is a big pilgrimage and memorial there each year (I think in the Spring). If you are ever in the area (hey... maybe on the way to the Bodie ghost town )... you should check it out.

 

[SkeLeton]

We have quite some ghost towns here in Chile too, most were build in the nitrate explotation boom (ends of the XIX century begginings of the XX). One that is very known is Humberstone. Of course all of these towns were built by the companies and later abandoned when the big nitrate crisis (mainly because the germans invented the synthetic nitrate).

The bad thing is that many of these towns are in very bad shape because people either tear apart the buildings and steal the materials and others are just abandoned and left to natural destruction. Of course the buildings are not rotting, because it's in the middle of the Atacama desert.

 

[nerudite]

We have quite some ghost towns here in Chile too, most were build in the nitrate explotation boom (ends of the XIX century begginings of the XX). One that is very known is Humberstone.

Cool! If you have the time/inclination, please post some pictures in a new thread... I would love to see what ghost towns look like in other parts of the world.

 

[Super Amputee Cat]

Rhyolite is another favorite of mine. I've spent a good deal of time on vacations hunting out old ghost towns. There was one a couple, three miles from my first job in Wisconsin. The only thing left of it was a cenetery and the old school, though. Several of the homes had been moved to nearby communities.

The tourists and smokers are rapidly destroying Nevada's heritage. Ovr the past 20 years or so, almost all the artifacts of many ghost towns throughout the state have vanished thanks to these jerks helping themselves to souvenirs or burning down historic buildings after they carelessly toss away a cigarette.

I'd shoot them, but $hit splatters.

 

[Super Amputee Cat]

Bank:

Here is what that building used to look like

 

[Super Amputee Cat]

Here is an historic view of the Bottle House, although the post card says Bullfrog, which is another town located nearby.

 

[Dan]

If you look at the county assessor's maps for Rhyolite, I wonder if the streets and lots are still platted, or whether the townsite plat has been completely vacated.

There's an abundance of "ghost subdivisions" throughout the West, especially in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Even though they've never been settled, they still seem to survive; lots remain platted, streets on the ground. Fly into El Paso International Airport, and you'll see subdivisions carved in the desert from Horizon City out to the Huecos, about 90 km past any settled areas.

 

[Super Amputee Cat]

Another great view of Rhyolite:

 

[SkeLeton]

Hey Dan.. I bet the Peruvians are going to sue whoever is responsible for those ghost subdivisions.. they're infringing the copyright of the Incasic marks that are around Peru