Abandoned Near a city · Los Angeles, California
4 Ghost Towns Near Los Angeles
The closest ghost town to Los Angeles is an oil camp in the hills above Santa Clarita. The rest are out past the mountains. Llano del Rio sits on Highway 138 in the Antelope Valley. Belleville is in the pines of Holcomb Valley above Big Bear Lake. Calico is off I-15 near Barstow.
They range from a restored oil town and a rebuilt silver camp, both parks, to stone ruins by the highway and a gold camp you find on a Forest Service dirt road. Drive times are estimates from downtown Los Angeles without traffic.
Each one is within a three-hour drive of downtown Los Angeles, by OSRM's estimate over OpenStreetMap roads. They're listed nearest first.
1.Mentryville
An oil town that grew around Pico No. 4, a well first struck in 1876 in Pico Canyon. About 100 families lived here until the early 1930s.
- What's left
- Charles Mentry's 13-room house, the one-room Felton School and a barn, all restored.
- Visiting
- A park run by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority at the end of Pico Canyon Road, west of I-5 at Lyons Avenue. Paved all the way.
2.Llano del Rio
A socialist colony launched on May 1, 1914, in the Antelope Valley. Its water from Big Rock Creek proved unreliable, and the site was abandoned in 1918.
- What's left
- Granite walls and chimneys of the hotel and other buildings, and traces of a stone aqueduct.
- Visiting
- The ruins stand beside Highway 138 near 165th Street East, east of Palmdale. Paved all the way.
3.Calico
A silver camp founded in 1881 in the Calico Mountains. Walter Knott bought it in the 1950s and rebuilt it as it looked in the 1880s.
- What's left
- Five original buildings among the rebuilt ones, plus mine tunnels in the hills behind town.
- Visiting
- A San Bernardino County regional park off I-15 between Barstow and Yermo, open daily from 9 to 5. Paved all the way.
4.Belleville
The gold camp of Holcomb Valley, which boomed after William Holcomb found gold there in 1860. It was busy for about ten years and nearly empty by 1900.
- What's left
- Little of the town. A log cabin, a landmark marker and the Hangman's Tree stand along the Gold Fever Trail, with diggings in the hills.
- Visiting
- Holcomb Valley is in San Bernardino National Forest, north of Big Bear Lake. The Forest Service lists the Gold Fever Interpretive Site as open all year, weather permitting, and calls it an off-road trail, but gives no vehicle advice. In June 2024 Big Bear's visitor bureau advised a vehicle with high clearance and four- or all-wheel drive. Van Dusen Canyon Road closes in winter; Polique Canyon Road is the winter way in.
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 Los Angeles, 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
- San Bernardino National Forest, "Gold Fever Interpretive Site" and "Holcomb Valley Campground", as of October 2026: open all year weather permitting, off-road trail, winter road access.
- Visit Big Bear, "Explore Gold Fever Trail" (June 2024): vehicle advice for the Gold Fever Trail.
- Mentryville: Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, "Mentryville" park page (mrca.ca.gov), and Wikipedia, "Mentryville, California".
- Llano del Rio: Wikipedia, "Llano del Rio".
- Calico: Wikipedia, "Calico, California", and San Bernardino County Regional Parks.
- Belleville: Wikipedia, "Belleville, California", and San Bernardino National Forest, Gold Fever Trail.
- 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: Los Angeles city, California ranks 2 among US cities, with 3,869,089 people on July 1, 2025.
- Drive times and distances: OSRM routing on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), October 2026, from downtown Los Angeles (34.0522, -118.2437) 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
- Mentryville: PKM, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Llano del Rio: Binksternet, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Calico: wolfgang.mller54 from Niedersachsen /Germany, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Belleville: C Tahauri, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0