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State hub · Wisconsin
Wisconsin's ghost towns are not Western mining camps, and most of them have left little to see. The oldest come from the lead rush in the southwest: by 1829 the district had 4,253 miners and 52 licensed smelters, and in the 1840s it produced more than half the nation's lead before the strikes played out and the California gold rush pulled men away. Belmont, the territory's first capital in 1836, and the river port of Sinnipee belong to that era. Farther north, the pine lumber boom built mill towns and railroad sidings that emptied once the timber was gone. On October 8, 1871, the night the Peshtigo fire killed an estimated 1,200 to 2,500 people, fire also wiped out Williamsonville in Door County. Quarry company towns like Stonehaven, Black farming settlements like Pleasant Ridge and Cheyenne Valley, Norwegian and Swedish colonies like Muskego and New Upsala, and river towns flooded by dams, Quincy under Castle Rock Lake and, by Wikipedia's account, Sinnipee in 1934, fill out the list.
Expect cemeteries, markers, foundations and a few restored buildings rather than streets of empty storefronts. The best stops are public: the two restored 1836 buildings at First Capitol near Belmont, the quarry lake and foundations of Stonehaven in Harrington Beach State Park, the well at Tornado Memorial County Park, and the well-kept 1840s village of Cooksville, which never emptied.
Town guides
Our complete guides, most-read first: history, what's left, current access, photos, maps and directions.
GuideIowa County
The Cornish miners' quarter of Wisconsin's oldest lead town. The boom ended in 1849, the cottages fell out of use, and two men saved a few of them in…
GuideBuffalo County
A crossroads in the Waumandee Creek valley that once had a hotel, a store, two saloons and the county's first fair. It shrank to a few families, and…
GuideDoor County
A shingle mill village of some 77 people on the Ahnapee River. On the night of the Peshtigo Fire a firestorm burned it, and most of its people died.…
GuideRacine County
One of the first Norwegian colonies in America, settled in 1839 on low, wet ground across the Waukesha and Racine county line. Malaria and cholera…
Rock County
Two 1840s villages of red brick houses around a New England green, left behind when the railroad went elsewhere. People still live here. It is called…
GuideGrant County
A farming settlement on a ridge west of Lancaster, started by a family freed from slavery in Virginia and shared with white neighbors. It had an…
GuideWinnebago County
A trading town on the Fox River, laid out in 1849 with a main street called Broadway and a hotel of 22 rooms. Better bridges and the railroad took…
Adams County
A river village that served as the first seat of Adams County, lost the county seat to Friendship in 1858 and its post office in 1915. Castle Rock…
GuideOzaukee County
From 1901 to 1925 a stone company quarried dolomite here and housed its immigrant workers in a company town. The pit is now a 26-acre lake in a state…
GuideIowa County
A mill village on the Pecatonica, named for the lead miner and politician John Adams. In 1881 it had a gristmill, a store, a school, two religious…
GuideVernon County
From 1855 nearly 150 African American settlers, many of them of mixed race, farmed this valley beside European immigrant neighbors and shared…
Lafayette County
For 46 days in 1836 the Wisconsin Territory was governed from two frame buildings on a hill in lead country. Then the capital went to Madison, and in…
Watch
A quarry lake, a living historic village, and round-barn country. Explore the history, maps and access notes before you go.
Where to start
Open attractions, living towns and true ruins, with their current status.
Ozaukee County
Company town of the Lake Shore Stone Company's dolomite quarry, worked from 1901 to 1925 by up to 150 men a day. The quarry is now a lake and foundations of some buildings survive inside Harrington Beach State Park, open 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. year-round with a vehicle sticker.
Door County
Shingle-mill village of 76 or 77 people burned out on October 8, 1871, the night of the Peshtigo fire. Door County counts 35 dead in a potato field and 19 survivors; the park's marker says 60 died in the field. Five of the seven men who hid in the well lived. The well and marker are in Tornado Memorial County Park on County DK, south of Sturgeon Bay.
Lafayette County
Speculator's town of 1835 where the Wisconsin Territory's first legislature met from October 25 to December 9, 1836. The railroad took the town three miles southeast in 1867; the restored council house and lodging house are a free Wisconsin Historical Society site, open weekends from late May to early September.
Rock County
New England-style village settled by 1837 and platted in 1842, whose brick houses face a common on three sides. It had 80 people in 1976. Its historic district, with a general store dated to 1842, is on the National Register, and the schoolhouse on the square is now a community center.
Grant County
Farming community founded about 1850 by the Shepard family, freed from slavery in Virginia in 1848, with 100 to 200 Black and white residents at its peak and an integrated school from 1873. The last Black resident died in 1959. The 1883 cemetery on Slabtown Road and two markers remain, both 2026 History Hop stops; the church was recreated at Old World Wisconsin.
Vernon County
Wisconsin's largest rural Black settlement of the 1800s, begun in 1855 by Walden Stewart; eleven families, about 62 people, farmed here by 1870. A state marker of 1997 at Cheyenne Settlers Heritage Park in Hillsboro starts a driving tour past the round barns Alga Shivers built.
Racine County
One of the first Norwegian colonies in America, settled from 1839 by families from Telemark. Malaria plagued it, cholera struck in 1849 and 1851, and the site was abandoned; the 1843 church was moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1904. A 1963 state marker, photographed in October 2026, stands at Heg Park Road and Norway Hill Road below Norway Lutheran Church, near Wind Lake.
Grant County
Mississippi River lead port founded by the Sinnipee Company in 1835, with a stone hotel of 1839 where Zachary Taylor and Jefferson Davis stayed. A flood and fever in 1840 emptied it. Wikipedia has said since 2012, citing a 2001 magazine article, that Lock and Dam No. 11 flooded the site in 1934; an undated listing describes farms, homes and an archery club near Sinipee Road.
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 Wisconsin index, with its county. A ◦ marks sites already on the map.
No sites match. Try fewer letters or another county.
Plan a trip
First Capitol near Belmont opens only on summer weekends: in 2026, Saturdays and Sundays from May 23 to September 6, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., free with a suggested $2 donation; it is now closed until May 2027. Harrington Beach State Park, where Stonehaven stood, is open 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. all year.
Many Wisconsin ghost-town sites are now farms, woodlots or parts of living towns. Undated listings put the lime kilns at Crusher on private property, seen from the road, and describe farms and homes near Sinipee Road. Treat posted signs, fences and crops as closed and ask the owner first. State parks need a vehicle admission sticker: $13 a day or $28 a year for Wisconsin plates, $16 or $50 for out-of-state plates, at rates set in August 2025.
At Pleasant Ridge, Harrison and Sacramento a cemetery is the last trace of the town, and Wisconsin's burial sites law (s. 157.70) protects every burial site, marked or unmarked; the Wisconsin Historical Society says any disturbance without its authorization is prohibited. On state park and other DNR land, metal detectors are allowed only under a permit to recover a specific lost item, between May 1 and October 15, and archaeological material 50 years old or older may not be removed.
Wikipedia says Sinnipee went under the pool of Lock and Dam No. 11 on the Mississippi in 1934, and Quincy in Adams County was flooded by Castle Rock Lake. Grand Chute, Lawesburg and Fort Howard were swallowed by Appleton and Green Bay instead. Read the directory entry before you drive: for many sites the destination is a shoreline, a street grid or a marker, not a town.
FAQ
No one has an official count. Wikipedia's list of Wisconsin ghost towns calls itself incomplete and sorts sites from barren (nothing left) to historic community (still inhabited but much smaller). Our index lists 77 sites in 37 of the state's 72 counties; 62 of them have coordinates on our map so far.
For standing buildings, First Capitol near Belmont, where the territorial council house and lodging house of 1836 are restored, and Cooksville, an 1840s village of brick houses whose schoolhouse is now a community center. For atmosphere, Stonehaven's quarry lake and foundations in Harrington Beach State Park, and the well at Williamsonville, where five people survived the 1871 firestorm.
Root Creek is inside the metro area, and the Muskego Settlement site near Wind Lake, Denoon and Raymond Center are each under an hour from downtown. Stonehaven, in Harrington Beach State Park north of Port Washington, is about 50 minutes away. These are routed estimates.
At Stonehaven you can: Harrington Beach State Park has a 69-site family campground, 31 of them with electricity, plus a non-electric group site for up to 30 people, reserved at wisconsin.goingtocamp.com. Tornado Memorial County Park and First Capitol are day-use sites with picnic areas and parking, not campgrounds.
Most are. The public exceptions are the state and county parks and historic sites named above and the heritage park at Cheyenne Valley. Elsewhere, look from the road, and treat posted signs, fences and crops as closed.
Abandoned