America’s Ghost Towns You Can Still Visit (10 Photos)

November 8, 2026

By Vidar

These ghost towns kept their buildings

The mines played out, the railroads moved on and the people left. The buildings stayed, from a mill on a rock in Colorado to a copper town in the Alaska wilderness. All ten are in the United States, and you can still visit each one.

🚲 Grafton — near Zion National Park, Utah, USA 🇺🇸

The adobe building in Grafton served as both schoolhouse and church, and dates from 1886. Film fans may know it: the schoolhouse is in the backdrop of the bicycle scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

💡 River Fact: On January 8, 1862, after 40 days of rain, the Virgin River flooded Grafton and the settlers moved the town 1½ miles north. The town peaked at 168 people in 1864, and the last residents left in 1944.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)

🚚 Bodie — Bodie State Historic Park, California, USA 🇺🇸

An old truck and two antique gas pumps wait on the edge of Bodie, the town named after W. S. Bodey, who found gold here in 1859. By 1879, roughly 7,000 to 10,000 people lived in the town.

💡 Park Fact: California made Bodie a state historic park in 1962, and about 110 structures still stand. Winters are harsh: the lowest recorded temperature is -36°F.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)

💧 Crystal Mill — Crystal, Colorado, USA 🇺🇸

Built in 1892 on a rock above the Crystal River, Crystal Mill is reportedly one of the most photographed sites in Colorado. It is also hard to reach: the way in from Marble is by four-wheel drive.

💡 Mill Fact: It never ground grain. Its water turbine drove an air compressor for the silver mines nearby, and it fell into disuse in 1917 when the Sheep Mountain Tunnel mine closed.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)

🏔️ Kennecott — Wrangell–St. Elias National Park, Alaska, USA 🇺🇸

In 1900, two prospectors found the richest deposit of copper ore left in the American West at Kennecott. The red buildings climb the hill to a 14-story concentration mill that towers over the town.

💡 Copper Fact: From 1911 to 1938, the mines yielded ore valued at $200 million in 1938 dollars. Visitors arrive by small plane or by the famously rough McCarthy Road.

📷 Photo: Historic American Engineering Record / Library of Congress (public domain)

🌲 Garnet — Garnet Range, Montana, USA 🇺🇸

About 40 miles east of Missoula, Garnet had about a thousand residents during the 1890s gold boom. Today about two dozen wooden structures dot the hillside.

💡 Winter Fact: From January through April, the Bureau of Land Management says access is only by snowmobile, cross-country skis or snowshoes. A fire in 1912 destroyed much of the town.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)

🏜️ Terlingua — Brewster County, Texas, USA 🇺🇸

Chicago industrialist Howard Perry opened the Chisos mine here in 1903, and as many as 2,000 people lived in Terlingua while it dug for mercury. The mine closed in 1945; walls like these at Terlingua are what is left.

💡 Chili Fact: The world’s first chili cook-off was held here in 1967, and the mining company’s 1939 movie house is now the Starlight Theatre restaurant.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)

⛏️ Nuttallburg — New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, West Virginia, USA 🇺🇸

England-born John Nuttall started this coal town in 1870. The rust-red tipple at Nuttallburg sits at the foot of a 1,385-foot conveyor that hauled coal down from the mine 600 feet above.

💡 Ford Fact: In the 1920s, Henry Ford leased the mines to supply coal for his company’s steel mills. Production stopped in 1958, and in 2011 the National Park Service finished a multi-year project to stabilize the site’s structures.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)

🐑 Shaniko — Wasco County, Oregon, USA 🇺🇸

Shaniko was called the Wool Capital of the World, and one day’s sale in 1903 topped a million dollars. Its three-room school was built in 1901 and taught kindergarten through high school until 1946.

💡 Name Fact: The town is named after settler August Scherneckau: local Native people pronounced his name Shaniko. In 2023, about 23 people still lived there.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)

🚗 Castle Dome City — near Yuma, Arizona, USA 🇺🇸

Settled in the 1860s as a mining camp, Castle Dome turned out to be far richer in lead than silver. Today it is the privately owned Castle Dome Mines Museum: seven buildings are original to the town, and the rest are period buildings made mostly from salvaged local materials.

💡 Lake Fact: The old river landing of Castle Dome Landing is gone: it now lies beneath the Imperial Dam reservoir at Martinez Lake.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)

🌾 South Pass City — Fremont County, Wyoming, USA 🇺🇸

After gold was found in 1867, South Pass City swelled to about 2,000 people, then shrank to about 100. The Carissa Mine on the hill had produced more than $15,000 of gold by 1868.

💡 Firsts Fact: In 1870, Esther Hobart Morris of South Pass City became the first female justice of the peace in the United States. The state bought the Carissa Mine in 2003.

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress (public domain)