America's Coolest Ghost Towns

Ghost towns have become a romantic part of the American mythos.  Many are old mining towns, but there are lots of reasons for a town to be abandoned.  What's left is always fun for modern day road trippers to explore.  Here are five of America's coolest ghost towns.

Bodie, California is a former gold town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  At one time it was home to nearly 10,000 residents.  At its peak, there were 65 saloons lining the mile-long Main Street.  By the time the post office finally closed in 1942, the population was down to three people.  The Secretary of the Interior designated the town as a National Historic Landmark in 1961, with 170 buildings still standing. Today, the Bodie Foundation maintains the town just enough to keep it from falling apart completely.  The stores are still stocked, and visitors can explore the abandoned town.  But don't take anything.  Legend has it that bad luck will befall anyone who removes anything from the town.

Flagstaff, ME is an underwater ghost town.  In 1950, plans for a hydroelectric dam threatened to submerge the whole town. Although most of the town was moved or dismantled, there are still remains that you can see from the surface of the water.  Use this map of the site to take a tour from a canoe.  

Cahawba, Alabama was once the capital of Alabama.  After only a few years, the constant flooding made it clear that it was not an ideal spot for a capital.  It went on to be the county seat, a major distribution point for cotton, and during the Civil War it held a prison for Union soldiers.  Eventually the floods won the day, and the town was slowly abandoned.  For a brief time it was a home for a community of freedmen, but they didn't remain either.  It's now a historical site open to visitors.

Rhyolite, NV sprang up in 1905 with the promise of gold.  Charles M. Schwab was so confident in the eventual prosperity of the town that he invested heavily in building the town.  But when the gold didn't pan out, the town was abandoned almost as quickly as it had appeared.  By 1920, it had become a ghost town, and a popular tourist attraction and film setting.  It's now "one of the most photographed ghost towns in the West."

Goldfield, AZ is an abandoned mining town that has been deliberately restored as a tourist attraction.  It has lots of shops, offers tours, and reenacts gun fights.  You can pan for gold and ride the train.  It's less historically accurate and more shamelessly kitschy than the other places on this list, but it offers a great time for the kids.