User:Narthring/Ghost town

The term ghost town describes certain sites that were once inhabited but have since declined or have been deserted. This decline usually due to political or economic factors. There is no definitive answer for what exactly is or is not a ghost town and the term is inherently subjective. Important and well-known ghost towns feature historical importance and picturesqueness.

Definition
The term "ghost town" came into common usage by the mid-1920s It is a subjective term without a clear definition. As a subjective term "ghost town" means different things to different people. One of the most commonly used and accepted definitions for a ghost town is a site that is a shadow of its former self. Other definitions state that a ghost town is what is left from a site that is longer profitable or purposeful and that they are "towns that are dead or dying"

History of the term
The term is linked through film and fiction to the American West The rise of automobile tourism in the 1920s led to ghost towns becoming tourist destinations. Tourism and automobile ownership were restricted to the upper classes who enjoyed more leisure time and wealth. As spare time and money became more accessible to lower classes they sought out destinations to drive to. The public fascination with ghost towns increased in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ghost towns in publishing
There have been many nonfiction books published since the early 1900s that describe and classify certain sites as ghost towns. Some authors are interested in former mining centers, some towns along historic trails, other places for their sensational backgrounds, some to state boundaries.

Types of sites
The term ghost town can be used to describe sites in various states of disrepair and abandonment. Sites described as ghost towns are in conditions ranging from barren agricultural fields to populated small towns and communities. Some sites no longer have any trace of civilization and have reverted back to pasture land or empty fields. Other sites are unpopulated but still have standing buildings. Some sites may even have a sizable, though small population, but there are far fewer citizens than in its grander historic past.

Ghost town origins
Some sites described as ghost towns were never towns at all and began as everything from tent cities to well-planned townsites. A ghost town site may have, at one time, been a camp, mine , mill , hamlet , village , river settlement or city with thousands of inhabitants.

Barren sites
Places that have been described as ghost towns include sites that are no longer in existance, have been completely destroyed, deserted, and have been completely covered with water.

Neglected and abandoned sites
At some sites only a few difficult to find foundations or footings may be all that is left. Some sites are only rubble. Sometimes the only trace left of a ghost town is its cemetery.

Roofless building ruins At some ghost towns there are buildings or houses still standing, but majority are roofless.


 * Building or houses still standing, but largely unused
 * Buildings and houses all abandoned
 * Site no longer in existence except for one or two buildings, for example old church, grocery store
 * No population, except caretaker

Semi-abandoned sites
Ghost town may describe a settlement abandoned by all or most of its inhabitants. Although it is sometimes assumed that a ghost town is a place where no one lives some ghost towns are inhabited year-round. Some ghost town sites still have a small population, sometimes only a resident or two.

Historic communities
Many ghost towns that have been written about have several hundred inhabitants. These towns and cities, though they still have vibrant economies, retain their "nineteenth-century flavor". They can be busy communities with genuine signs of vitality. These towns are smaller than they were in their boom years and their population has decreased dramatically, to one fifth or less in many cases.

Political

 * County seats
 * Liquor laws
 * Lakes
 * City expansion

Towns that died when nearby military posts were abandoned.

Economic

 * Timber
 * Agriculture
 * Weather and climate
 * Transportation
 * Minerals

Resorts that couldn't break even.

The Great Depression slowed the need for many raw materials and led to the abandonment of some mining towns.


 * Cultural changes

Threats to ghost towns
After a site is abandoned it begins to decay. Weathering destroys buildings and foundations. Some ghost town's remains disappear due to squatters and vandalism.

Some people in ghost towns have been noted to be defensive and sometimes hostile, since tourists have pillaged their towns looking for souvenirs or valuables.

Local residents usually dislike visitors and tourists with metal detectors.

Many landowners will grant permission to explore but object to trespassing. Fires started by cigarette, people becoming lost, causing destruction of property intentionally or unintentionally.

Dangers in ghost towns
Dangers of old abandoned buildings include rusty nails, splinters, cracking floorboards and sagging staircases.

Good long quote
A ghost town should, of course, display only a shadow of its former glory. Ideally it would be completely deserted, full of two- and three-story false-fronted buildings, all of them completely furnished and undisturbed. The Town should appear as if the entire population had gone to a funeral and failed to return. To top it off, a tumbleweed should blow down the dusty main street, bouncing in rhythm with the banging of loose shutters and the screech of unoiled hinges.

But that's not the way it is. Perhaps such a perfect example awaits discovery, but I fear that I shall never find it. I've seen the tumbleweed, but the buildings were mere heaps of rubble. The rattling shutters were there too, but the buildings were single-storied and empty of wares. Three-story false-fronted buildings? Yes, but the town was yet alive.

Additional information to incorporate
"Ramshackle buildings scattered in a sagebrush-strewen valley" portrayed in film and television Western.

Ghost towns include sites where "virtually nothing exists", no residents or traces (Aurora, Nevada) Towns that still have commercial activity (Tombstone, Arizona) modern attractions for tourists built for that purpose (Knott's Berry Farm, California)

abandoned buildings, all collapsed (Masonic), restored (Bodie), reproduced (Calico, California)

residents may embrace their town's status as a ghost town, try to deny it, or "fabricate it (as at Knott's).

Rock piles, mine dumps, heaps of rubble, "acres of oil-soaked, ruined soil" may be all that is left

Stations and water towers are sometimes the only things left at railroad towns.

Foundations, walls or cemeteries.

Ranching towns and stations were usually made of less-durable materials.

Mills usually stand longer than other buildings.

Smelters, ovens, powerhouses, and chimneys were much more durable and can stand for generations.