Abandoned Towns

Town type

Railroad, road and fort ghost towns

Railroad sidings, division points and water stops, stage stations and wagon-road stops, highway towns the interstates bypassed, and the forts and camps that guarded the routes.

120Town guides
31States

Town guides

120 railroad and road town guides

Our complete guides, most-read first: history, what's left, current access, photos, maps and directions.

A gravel street in Monowi running past dry grass toward a tall grain elevator and a stand of trees under a blue skyGuide

Monowi

42.83, -98.33

Boyd County, Nebraska

A railroad village platted in 1902 that counted 123 people in 1930 and one in 2010. Elsie Eiler, its only resident, runs the tavern and the library…

Population oneRailroad and road
The green steel truss bridge that carried Route 66 over the Meramec River at Times Beach, between wooded banksGuide

Times Beach

38.51, -90.60

St. Louis County, Missouri

A summer resort town of the 1920s on the Meramec River that grew past 2,000 people. Dioxin in the oil sprayed on its dirt roads led to a federal…

State parkMill, lumber and companyRoute 66
A burro walks down the middle of Oatman's Main Street between wooden storefronts and parked carsGuide

Oatman

35.03, -114.38

Mohave County, Arizona

A gold camp that boomed after 1915, lost Route 66 in 1952 and came back as a tourist town. About 100 people live here, and wild burros still walk…

Living townGold miningRoute 66
A long white stucco building with red tile roofs behind a wide lawn and a flagpole, framed by pinesGuide

Fort McClellan

33.72, -85.80

Calhoun County, Alabama

For 82 years Fort McClellan trained soldiers by the hundred thousand, and in 1990 the census counted 4,128 people living on it. The Army left in…

Partly redevelopedRailroad and road
Thurmond's brick Commercial Row beside the railroad tracks, with a signal bridge and the concrete coaling tower down the line, June 2005Guide

Thurmond

37.96, -81.08

Fayette County, West Virginia

The busiest town on the Chesapeake and Ohio's New River line, a dry railroad town with a saloon-ringed hotel across the river. Five people lived here…

National park siteRailroad and road
A white two-storey frame house with green-trimmed windows, seen through live oaks hung with Spanish moss: the house said to be the only one in Rosewood that survived 1923Guide

Rosewood

29.24, -82.93

Levy County, Florida

A mostly Black town of a few hundred people near Cedar Key that white mobs attacked and burned in the first week of 1923. Its families fled and none…

Rural communityMill, lumber and company
Wrecked railroad cars buried among snapped tree trunks and snow below the tracks after the Wellington avalanche of March 1, 1910Guide

Wellington

47.75, -121.12

King County, Washington

A railroad town on the west side of Stevens Pass where an avalanche swept two snowbound trains into the valley in 1910 and killed 96 people. Nothing…

TrailheadRailroad and road
Reconstructed log barracks and two small log buildings on the grassy 1874 parade ground at Fort Robinson, under bare treesGuide

Fort Robinson

42.67, -103.47

Dawes County, Nebraska

The Army post where Crazy Horse was killed in 1877 and the Northern Cheyenne broke out in 1879, later a cavalry remount depot and a prisoner-of-war…

State parkRailroad and road
Main Street in Genoa running south under big trees, with the Carson Range behindGuide

Genoa

39.00, -119.85

Douglas County, Nevada

Mormon Station, the 1851 trading post at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, grew into Genoa, Nevada's first town. A 1910 fire took the old station; the…

Lived inRailroad and road
The replica of Independence Hall, a plain gray clapboard building under oak trees, with a stone obelisk on the lawn beside itGuide

Washington-on-the-Brazos

30.33, -96.16

Washington County, Texas

The town where Texas declared independence in 1836 and later a capital of the Republic. It turned down the railroad in 1858, and by 1889 most of it…

State historic siteRiver and lake
The Exit 230 Two Guns sign beside I-40, with the long stone walls of the old zoo in the brush under a grey skyGuide

Two Guns

35.12, -111.09

Coconino County, Arizona

A Route 66 trading post, zoo and gas station on the rim of Canyon Diablo, built up in the 1920s and burned out in 1971. The ruins sit on private land…

Ruins · 2026 reportsRailroad and roadRoute 66
Map around ManchesterGuide

Manchester

44.37, -97.72

Kingsbury County, South Dakota

A prairie railroad town that had shrunk to a few families when an F4 tornado flattened it in June 2003. It was never rebuilt, and the state dissolved…

Monument site · 2023 reportRailroad and road
All 120 guides by state, A to Z

Alabama 1

Alaska 1

Arizona 27

Arkansas 1

California 3

Florida 2

Idaho 1

Illinois 3

Indiana 2

Iowa 3

Kansas 3

Louisiana 1

Michigan 1

Minnesota 3

Mississippi 1

Missouri 4

Nebraska 4

Nevada 1

New Mexico 5

North Dakota 12

Ohio 1

Oklahoma 6

Oregon 1

Pennsylvania 1

South Carolina 2

South Dakota 5

Texas 10

Utah 2

Washington 3

West Virginia 3

Wyoming 7

Other town types