RP228 Ghost Towns

 RP228 Ghost Towns

Scattered across the American Great Plains are little pockets of buildings, clustered together. The windows are usually broken. No water comes from the taps. Sometimes there are old cars rusting, abandoned in the tall grass. No one comes, no one goes. No one lives there anymore. These are the ghost towns of the USA.

These towns were abandoned when the industries supporting them died. Many towns in the Northern Plains grew around the building of a railway line, which was never completed. Others were left when the highway system replaced the rail system. In other areas, mining towns were abandoned when the ore ran out. Residents moved on to other jobs and other industries, leaving behind the structures they had made. Now, many of these ghost towns are historical sites, run as open-air museums.

Bodie, California, is one of the most well-known ghost towns in the USA. It began as a mining camp in 1859 and grew quickly. By 1880, Bodie had perhaps 7,000 residents, a telegraph, a jail, several newspapers, and even a Taoist temple! However, gold found in neighboring states lured miners away from Bodie. The town began to decline after the 1880s, and by 1920, only 120 people lived there. The town, however, still stands. Its wooden buildings nestle under greenish hills and a vast blue sky. Though no one lives there now, about 200,000 people a year visit ghostly Bodie.

Bannack, Montana, was also built and abandoned over gold. Founded in 1862, the town was briefly the capital of the Montana Territories, but prosperity didn't last. By the 1930s, there was little work to be had in the mines. The last of the residents left by the 1970s, abandoning 60 historic log-and-frame structures. Visitors can explore most of them. Bannack, like Bodie, is experiencing a second life as a National Historic Landmark. Perhaps there is life after death, at least for ghost towns.