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.

Largest ghost towns in Missouri