15 Spookiest Ghost Towns In America And Their Mysterious History

11. Calico, California

When we first heard about Calico, California we secretly hoped it would be a really hip abandoned ghost town taken over by cats. Not nearly as creepy as some of the other entries, if only because it’s been restored, Calico gives a good idea of what it was like actually living in a prospecting town in the late 1800s. Located in the Mojave desert, Calico was once earning residents millions a year in silver and borax. When the price of these started to drop, people started filtering out. While another plant was built in the town in the early decades of the twentieth century, that died too, and by 1935 the town was completely abandoned. The town has been since restored but has a reputation for being quite haunted by a number of ghosts drifting around. The heart of the haunting lies at the old school house where many people report seeing a young girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old smiling at the window. Others have reported seeing someone who looks like they might be a school teacher, as well as other small children who like to pinch at people’s ankles.

12. Bannack, Montana

Bannack was once the territorial capital of Montana. Like many ghost towns, the town grew and fell with the price of gold. Much of the town is still standing and historians and locales upkeep the ghost town and its history. A remarkably well-preserved example of frontier life, the town had a violent and often bloody history. Once upon a time the town’s sheriff, Henry Plummer, was accused of leading a murderous bandit gang, who some claim murdered over one hundred people, though historical research only claims eight possible deaths recorded during this period. In fact, there is only growing doubt as to whether Plummer committed any of the crimes at all. Plummer was hanged along with two deputies without trial. Twenty-two of his apparent associates were treated similarly, lynched or exiled without due process. If you visit the town today, during certain parts of the year they offer ghost tours.

13. North Brother Island, New York

Instead of a sign welcoming people to the now abandoned North Brother Island, there should be one in its place that just reads “Nope.” Abandoned since 1963, more than a dozen buildings remain on North Brother Island which used to host a hospital. The place where the infamous Typhoid Mary was kept in isolation, the stories of disease, isolation, and abuse echo through photos of the abandoned halls. Of all the creepy abandoned buildings perhaps none are more unsettling than hospitals, which are supposed to be a place of wellness and care. Cities or towns abandoned more recently also have an extra flair of horror, reminding us that life can quickly fade out or burn out in an instant. While you need express permission from the New York Parks Department to tour the island now, a number of photographers have documented the decaying landscape with their work readily available online. With much of the Island left completely as is, with tools, materials and medical materials just hanging in limbo, North Brother Island is like a real-life Silent Hill game.

14. Rhyolite, Nevada

Something tells us that building a town at the edge of Death Valley was never going to go quite as planned. That’s where Rhyolite was founded in 1904 by prospectors looking for gold. At its height the town was bustling, with money flowing freely as prospectors gathered to take their chance at fortune. In a relatively short time, they even got electricity and other industries, including a bottling plant, started to rise up. Along the way prostitutes came as well, looking to serve the newly wealthy clientele. As soon as things built up, they started to wind down. A financial crisis in 1907 crippled the town, and banks started failing. In 1911, they closed the mill, and the final death blow came just five years later when in 1916, electricity was cut from the town. To this day remnants of the town still stand, overlooking the smoldering death valley desert.

15. Santa Claus, Arizona

We love the idea that someone named a town Santa Claus because that little detail makes this ghost town a little more creepy. In the middle of the Mojave desert, one of the hottest places in America, someone decided to put together a town to the man we most often associate with soft tumbling snowflakes. Founded in 1937, a real-estate agent named Nina Talbot, decided to make a town built around Christmas year-round to attract residents to the unlikely locale. With Christmas themed buildings, the town became a tourist attraction, but no one really wanted to buy any properties. Cutting her losses, Nina sold the town in 1949. While the town was still an attraction over the next decade, in particular for people curious about a desert town always celebrating Christmas and for some high-quality restaurants, by the 1970s it was falling apart. By 1995 all businesses were gone, and now very little is left standing – nothing has been left unmarked by vandalism.

Credits: therichest

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