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State hub · Minnesota
Minnesota's ghost towns died of three things: a railroad that went somewhere else, a forest that ran out, and a mine that closed or swallowed its own town. Towns were platted on the rail lines as shipping points for farm products, by railroad companies and by private proprietors, and places that the rails missed emptied fast. Forestville in Fillmore County was bypassed by the railroad in 1868 and was down to 55 people by 1880; Old Crow Wing, once a county seat of 600 or 700 people on the Red River ox-cart trail, faded after the Northern Pacific chose Brainerd in 1871.
In the north, white pine logging peaked in 1900 at more than 2.3 billion board feet and left camps like Splitrock, dismantled in 1907 once the Split Rock River valley was cut. On the Iron Range, mining companies built and unbuilt whole towns: Hibbing moved about 200 buildings two miles south between 1919 and 1921 so the mine could expand, Elcor was emptied by its owner after its last mine closed in 1954 and later buried under mine stockpiles, and the last families left Erie Mining's Taconite Harbor on Lake Superior in 1988.
What survives is uneven. Forestville's store and houses are a Minnesota Historical Society site, and Old Crow Wing, Banning and Splitrock lie inside state parks. On the Cuyuna Range, Manganese's foundations lie in the brush; on the Mesabi, Elcor is buried under mine overburden. Elsewhere little may be left: at Nininger two plaques mark the site.
Town guides
Our complete guides, most-read first: history, what's left, current access, photos, maps and directions.
GuideCook County
A neighborhood of 22 prefab houses that Erie Mining built beside its taconite dock in 1957. The company cleared it in the late 1980s, and the streets…
GuideCrow Wing County
A village platted in 1911 on the Cuyuna Range's manganese ore. It reached nearly 600 people in 1919, emptied as the mines closed, and was dissolved…
GuideSt. Louis County
A company town of the Elba and Corsica mines that held nearly 1,000 people around 1920. Its owner ordered everyone out in 1955, and since 1993 the…
GuideDakota County
A paper city on the Mississippi that Ignatius Donnelly sold to the world in 1856. It held nearly 1,000 people within two years, the Panic of 1857…
GuideFillmore County
A Root River town of the 1850s that the railroad passed by in 1868. One family bought up what was left, and when its store closed in 1910 the town…
GuideCrow Wing County
A trading town where the Crow Wing River meets the Mississippi, the leading trade and travel center of its region in the 1860s. The railroad crossed…
Cook County
An Ojibwe village on the Lake Superior shore that was bigger than Grand Marais in the early 1900s. Tax forfeiture and the highway took its land in…
GuideLake County
A logging camp on Lake Superior's North Shore that lasted from 1899 to 1906. Its buildings and railroad were gone by 1907. Old pilings still stand at…
GuideRed Lake County
A railroad station, an elevator and a Catholic church on the prairie west of Red Lake Falls. The railroad left in 1973 and the church burned in 2014…
GuidePine County
A quarry town that cut pink sandstone above the Kettle River for twenty years and closed in 1912. The houses are gone, but the roofless stone walls…
Watch
An old general store, sandstone quarries, and a surviving village 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.
Fillmore County
Settled in 1852, bypassed by the railroad in 1868 and owned outright by the Meighen family, whose store closed in 1910. Now Historic Forestville inside Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park: grounds open dawn to dusk; building hours were not posted in October 2026.
Crow Wing County
Fur post and ox-cart town at the mouth of the Crow Wing River, with 600 to 700 people in the 1850s and 1860s. Emptied after the railroad picked Brainerd in 1871. The 1849 Beaulieu House and the Catholic cemetery survive in Crow Wing State Park.
Pine County
Sandstone quarry town on the Kettle River, quarried from 1892 and finished when the last company shut in 1912. The 1.8-mile Quarry Loop Trail in Banning State Park passes the drill-scarred quarry wall and the shells of the rock crusher and power house.
Cook County
Ojibwe village of more than 100 families in the 1880s and 1890s, a mile and a half northeast of Grand Marais. The 1895 St. Francis Xavier church is one of its last remnants. Historic Cook County opens it on summer afternoons and closes it for fall and winter.
Lake County
Logging company town of 1899 at the mouth of the Split Rock River, where 350 men cut 200 million board feet by 1906. Dismantled in 1907; dam and wharf pilings still jut from the water at the river mouth, inside Split Rock Lighthouse State Park.
Cook County
Erie Mining's company neighborhood of 1957, 22 prefab houses between Highway 61 and Lake Superior. The last 21 families were told to leave in 1986; the last went in June 1988. A radio station report of October 2025 found only a streetlight pole and the pavement. Minnesota Power owns the old plant site and Cleveland-Cliffs the land beside it (June 2026); walking access not verified.
St. Louis County
Mesabi Range location of 1897 near Gilbert that reached nearly 1,000 people around 1920. Pickands Mather ordered everyone out after its last mine closed in 1954; every building went by 1956, and since 1993 the site has been buried under mine overburden. We found no source on visitor access; treat it as mine property.
Crow Wing County
Cuyuna Range town platted in 1911 that supplied most of America's wartime manganese, with nearly 600 people in 1919 and 41 by 1950. Wikipedia describes foundations and broken sidewalks left in the brush. The land has been private and posted since 2003, with private campsites since 2017 that the owners still advertised in 2024; ask them before entering.
Red Lake County
Northern Pacific station of 1916 and 1917 with a church, a school and an elevator. The line and elevator closed in 1973 and the church burned in 2014, the newest dated report we found.
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 Minnesota index, with its county. A ◦ marks sites already on the map.
No sites match. Try fewer letters or another county.
Plan a trip
Winter storms can shut down travel: on December 28, 2025 MnDOT advised no travel on all state and federal highways in its 11-county southeast district, Fillmore County included. Check 511mn.org before a winter drive. From spring to fall the hazard is ticks. Minnesota reported 3,551 probable Lyme disease cases in 2024, and most cases report likely exposure in east-central, north-central and southeast Minnesota. Wear long trousers and check for ticks.
Forestville, Old Crow Wing, Banning and Splitrock all sit in state parks, which need a vehicle permit: $7 for a day or $35 for a year. Historic Forestville's grounds are typically open from dawn to dusk, and its hours page lists admission as free with the park permit for parking; for the July 2026 Bat Festival, self-guided building tours cost $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $8 for children. Chippewa City's church opens only on summer afternoons; call Historic Cook County at 218-387-2883 for the current season.
Under Minnesota Statutes 97B.001 you need the owner's permission to enter agricultural land for any outdoor recreation, whether or not it is posted. Posted land of any kind is closed, and knowingly ignoring the signs is a gross misdemeanor. If a townsite is now a field or farmyard, find the house and ask. Elcor and the Taconite Harbor site belong to mining and power companies.
The Field Archaeology Act, Minnesota Statutes 138.31 to 138.42, makes any digging or removal of artifacts on state, county or city land a licensed activity, and willful violations a gross misdemeanor. State park rules bar disturbing ruins and historical artifacts, and allow metal detectors only to find a specific piece of lost property, with the park manager's written permission. The act's historical remains leave out bottles and ceramics made after 1875, but in a park the park rules still protect them.
FAQ
No one has counted. Wikipedia's incomplete list names 66 places, and the Mesabi Range alone had more than 125 mining locations, most of them now gone. Our index lists 66 sites in 21 counties; 35 of them have coordinates on our map. St. Louis County, home of Elcor and other Mesabi Range sites, has the most with four.
Forestville, in Fillmore County south of Rochester, is the one with buildings: the well-preserved Meighen store, which closed in 1910, and the family homestead, run by the Minnesota Historical Society inside a state park. Old Crow Wing near Brainerd has the 1849 Beaulieu House, the town's last building, on a 2.2-mile loop trail. For ruins, walk the quarry at Banning.
Itasca, a townsite of 1852 that is now a rest area on US 10 in Ramsey, is about 40 minutes from downtown, and Nininger, the failed city of 1857 where Ignatius Donnelly lived, about 45, though only two plaques mark it. Dickinson is about 50 minutes and Bodum an hour. East Red Wing, Lake Addie and Fairpoint take an hour and 20 minutes to an hour and a half. These are routed estimates on open roads.
Railroads platted towns as shipping points and bypassed the ones that had grown up on rivers and trails, as at Forestville, Old Crow Wing and Old Wadena. The big-pine logging era ended around 1929, and the logging camps went with it. On the Iron Range, towns were company property: Elcor was cleared by its mining company by 1956, and most of Taconite Harbor's houses were moved off by 1990. A few were simply platted too soon, like Nininger, which reached nearly 1,000 people by 1858 and then faded.
The best ones are not: Forestville, Old Crow Wing, Banning and Splitrock are in state parks, and the Chippewa City church is run by the county historical society. Elcor and Taconite Harbor are mining and power company land. Many other sites in the index are on private land, and on farmland Minnesota law requires permission before you enter.
Abandoned