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State hub · Georgia
Several of Georgia's ghost towns date from the colony itself. Frederica grew up around Oglethorpe's fort on St. Simons Island from 1736 and had about 1,000 people by 1740; most left after the garrison was disbanded in 1749, and the town was mostly abandoned by 1755. Ebenezer, settled by Salzburger Protestant refugees in 1734, and the seaport of Sunbury, founded in 1758, were both left in ruins by the Revolution. Petersburg, a tobacco town of 1786 where the Broad River meets the Savannah, was for a time Georgia's third-largest town; by 1854 three families were left.
Later towns grew with gold, water power and the Cherokee Nation. The gold rush that began in 1829 made Auraria a boomtown of about 1,000 people before Dahlonega took the county seat. At Scull Shoals, floods and silt from upstream cotton farms made water power unworkable by the mid-1880s; the New Georgia Encyclopedia also blames fires and the Civil War. Union cavalry burned the New Manchester mill in 1864, and the town was never resettled. New Echota, the Cherokee capital from 1825, was emptying by 1834 and abandoned after the forced removal of 1838. What survives ranges from mill walls, earthworks and foundations to a church, a cemetery and a few old buildings. Most of the featured sites are on public land, in a national forest, a national monument, a state park and two state historic sites. Parts of Auraria are private, and Petersburg lies mostly under a reservoir.
Town guides
Our complete guides, most-read first: history, what's left, current access, photos, maps and directions.
GuideLumpkin County
A gold-rush settlement of 1832 that lost the county seat to Dahlonega and later lost miners to the West. Old buildings survive around Auraria Road…
GuideEffingham County
The Salzburger town dwindled after the Revolution. Its brick church still serves a congregation, and a museum keeps the settlers’ history beside the…
GuideGreene County
A mill village on the Oconee River whose cotton economy helped bury its own water supply in silt. The Forest Service maintains the ruins as a…
GuideElbert County
A tobacco port founded in 1786 at the meeting of the Broad and Savannah rivers. The town declined long before Clarks Hill Lake covered its remains in…
GuideDouglas County
A five-story cotton mill on Sweetwater Creek supported a town of about 250. Union cavalry burned it in July 1864 and sent its workers north, and…
Watch
Mill ruins, a gold rush store, and a surviving colonial church. Explore the history, maps and access notes before you go.
Where to start
Open attractions, living towns and true ruins, with their current status.
Greene County
Oconee River mill town settled in 1782, with Georgia's first paper mill from shortly after 1810. Silt from upstream cotton farms buried its shoals; mill and warehouse ruins stand in Oconee National Forest, open sunrise to sunset with no fee (Forest Service notice, February 2025).
Douglas County
Textile mill town of about 250 people on Sweetwater Creek. Union cavalry burned the five-story mill in July 1864 and sent its workers north. The brick shell stands in Sweetwater Creek State Park; you can hike to the outside, but the interior is open only to guided hikes, school trips and special events.
Lumpkin County
Gold rush boomtown of 1832 that grew to about 1,000 people, then declined when the county seat went to Dahlonega and faded as miners left for California. Woody's Store, a red house that was once a bank and a cemetery remain; some of the buildings are on private property, per a May 2026 report. Ask the owner before leaving the road.
Liberty County
Colonial seaport of 1758 that rivaled Savannah, burned by the British near the end of the Revolution and mostly abandoned by 1848. Its cemetery survives, and Fort Morris State Historic Site at Sunbury keeps the fort's earthworks and a museum on the old port.
Glynn County
Town of up to 1,000 people beside Oglethorpe's 1736 fort on St. Simons Island, mostly abandoned by 1755. Its remains are preserved in Fort Frederica National Monument, whose grounds the park lists as open daily from 9 to 5 (hours page, October 2024).
Gordon County
Capital of the Cherokee Nation from 1825, where the removal treaty was signed in 1835 and the Trail of Tears officially began. Twelve original and reconstructed buildings stand at the state historic site near Calhoun.
Effingham County
Salzburger refugee town moved nearer the Savannah River in 1736, ruined in the Revolution and all but gone by 1855. Jerusalem Church, finished in 1769, still stands, and a small society museum opens on Saturday afternoons or by appointment.
Elbert County
Tobacco town of 1786 at the fork of the Broad and Savannah rivers, once Georgia's third-largest town. Clarks Hill Lake covered it in the early 1950s. A visit video posted in June 2026 shows brick and foundation stones on the shore of the neighboring county park while the lake was low. Access to the townsite is not verified.
Near a city
Driving distance and time from downtown, routed over OpenStreetMap roads. Dirt roads are usually slower than the estimate.
Directory
Every town, camp and settlement in our Georgia index, with its county. A ◦ marks sites already on the map.
No sites match. Try fewer letters or another county.
Plan a trip
Several of these sites keep short or seasonal hours. New Echota opens Tuesday to Saturday from 9 to 5 and Sunday from 1 to 5, with no Sunday hours from December to March. Fort Morris's grounds are open daily from 9 to 5 but its museum only Friday to Sunday, and the Salzburger museum at Ebenezer opens Saturdays from 3 to 5 or by appointment. Sweetwater Creek State Park opens at 7 a.m. and closes at dark, and Scull Shoals is open from sunrise to sunset.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30 and peaks around September 10, which matters for the coastal sites at Sunbury and Frederica. Inland, the river sites change with the water: silt from upstream farms buried the shoals and much of the village at Scull Shoals, and whether anything of Petersburg shows depends on the level of Clarks Hill Lake.
Scull Shoals is national forest with no fee, reached by about 1.8 miles of gravel road. State parks such as Sweetwater Creek charge a $10 daily ParkPass per vehicle, which is not valid at state historic sites; those charge their own admission, $8 for adults at New Echota and $5 at Fort Morris. Islands reported in May 2026 that some of Auraria's remaining structures are on private property, and it advised visitors not to enter the crumbling buildings.
Georgia's Department of Natural Resources says it is not legal to surface collect, dig or metal detect on state property, including Civil War sites there, or to take artifacts off the bottom of state-owned waters. Digging on private land needs the owner's written permission, and disturbing graves is illegal whoever owns the land. The Forest Service prohibits removing anything from Scull Shoals.
FAQ
There is no official count, and totals depend on whether you count colonial towns, mill villages, railroad stops and crossroads communities. Our index lists 83 sites, 81 of them with coordinates on our map so far.
For ruins in the woods, Scull Shoals in Oconee National Forest is free and open every day from sunrise to sunset. Closer to Atlanta, the brick shell of the New Manchester mill, burned in 1864, stands beside the creek in Sweetwater Creek State Park. For a colonial town, Fort Frederica National Monument on St. Simons Island preserves the excavated house foundations of Frederica along Broad Street, its old main street. The park's hours page (October 2024) lists the grounds open daily from 9 to 5, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.
The New Manchester mill ruins at Sweetwater Creek State Park are about 25 minutes west of downtown. Auraria, near Dahlonega, and New Echota, near Calhoun, are each under an hour and a half, and Scull Shoals is a little under two hours to the east. These are routed estimates; the last stretch to Scull Shoals is gravel.
Possibly, when the water is low. Petersburg, once Georgia's third-largest town, was flooded when the Corps of Engineers built Clarks Hill Lake (also called Thurmond Lake) in the early 1950s. An undated leaflet from Elbert County's Bobby Brown Park, beside the site, says visitors may be able to see what remains from the lakeshore when lake levels are down. A visit video posted in June 2026 shows brick fragments and foundation stones on the park's shore at low water.
Not on state land. Georgia law bars metal detecting, digging and surface collecting on state property, which includes state parks and historic sites. On private land you need the owner's written permission to dig, including for finds made with a metal detector. At Scull Shoals the Forest Service prohibits removing anything; on other federal land, ask the managing office first.
Abandoned