Abandoned Near a city · Houston, Texas
4 Ghost Towns Near Houston
Houston's ghost towns are not mining camps. They are river ports, college towns and farm settlements of the Republic of Texas that lost out when the railroads went elsewhere. Washington-on-the-Brazos and Independence lie northwest of the city in Washington County, on the old La Bahía Road. Port Sullivan sits farther up the Brazos in Milam County. Praha is west, off I-10 near Flatonia.
Three are still small rural communities, and Washington is also a state historic site. Port Sullivan is a cemetery by a gravel road. Most of what you can see is a church, a ruin or a marker on the spot where a town once stood.
Each one is within a three-hour drive of downtown Houston, by OSRM's estimate over OpenStreetMap roads. They're listed nearest first.
1.Washington-on-the-Brazos
Where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed in 1836. The town was a political and trade center of early Texas and faded after the railroads bypassed it.
- What's left
- A replica of Independence Hall, the Star of the Republic Museum and the Barrington Living History Farm, on part of the old townsite. The rest is a farming community of 265 people (2000).
- Visiting
- Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site, paved all the way. The park hosts a celebration of Texas independence every March 2.
2.Independence
Founded as Coles' Settlement, Independence was the first home of Baylor University. The college moved to Waco in 1885 and the town began a long decline.
- What's left
- The Independence Baptist Church, the Texas Baptist Historical Center, Judge Coles's home, Baylor College Park with the columns of the old women's college, and the Old Independence Cemetery.
- Visiting
- A rural community of 140 people (2000) at a crossroads of farm roads. Baylor College Park and the cemetery are open public sites.
3.Praha
A Czech farm town named for Prague in 1858. The railroad passed a mile north in 1873, and the new town of Flatonia drew its business away.
- What's left
- St. Mary's Church of the Assumption, one of the best known of the Texas painted churches, with a cemetery. Praha had 25 people in 2000.
- Visiting
- On Farm Road 1295 three miles east of Flatonia, paved. Mass is still said at St. Mary's, and the Feast of the Assumption on August 15 draws more than 5,000 visitors.
4.Port Sullivan
A Brazos River steamboat port founded in 1851, with a college and 1,423 people in 1870. The railroad reached Calvert, the river trade ended, and by the 1890s the town was gone.
- What's left
- The Port Sullivan Cemetery is the only landmark. Concrete locks the Army Corps of Engineers built in the river between 1910 and 1920 are nearby.
- Visiting
- The cemetery is beside a gravel road north of Farm Road 485, just west of the Brazos. We haven't confirmed who owns the land around it.
How we picked them
- We started from every mapped site in our index of 6,591 US ghost town sites and routed to each one from downtown Houston, keeping those within 180 minutes.
- We preferred real towns over forts, stage stations and single mines; places you can legally visit or see from a public road; and sites with something left to see. We list at most nine.
- Status means what we could confirm from a recent source. Where we couldn't, the entry says "Not verified". Check before you go, and treat locked gates and posted signs as closed.
Sources
- Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association: Washington-on-the-Brazos, Independence, Praha and Port Sullivan, checked October 19, 2026.
- Wikipedia: Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas and Port Sullivan, Texas.
- Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 20,000 or More, Ranked by July 1, 2025 Population: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-IP-EST2025-ANNRNK), U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Vintage 2025, released May 2026: Houston city, Texas ranks 4 among US cities, with 2,397,315 people on July 1, 2025.
- Drive times and distances: OSRM routing on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), October 2026, from downtown Houston (29.7604, -95.3698) to each town's coordinates.
- Town list, counties and record pages: our index of ghosttowns.com state lists and Wikipedia's ghost town categories, October 2026.
- Map: US Census Bureau state and county boundaries via us-atlas (public domain).
Photo credits
- Washington-on-the-Brazos: Noconatom, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Independence: HominyGrits007, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Praha: Kyle G. Sweeney, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0