Every ghost town started as somebody's sure thing. A gold strike, a copper vein, or a busy rail line convinced thousands of people to build homes, open saloons, and send for their families. Yet within a generation or two, most of them were gone.
What they left behind tells the story of how much of America was built, one boom and bust at a time. These 10 ghost towns are some of the best places in the country to see that story for yourself, and every one of them is open to visitors today.
Bodie, California
Gold was found here in 1859, but Bodie didn't boom until 1877, when a mine cave-in exposed a rich vein of ore. Within a few years, the population had swelled to more than 8,000 people.
Bodie earned a reputation as one of the roughest towns in the West, as well as a place where anyone could strike it rich. The mines faded in the early 1900s, and California made Bodie a state historic park in 1962. Roughly 100 buildings remain in "arrested decay," stabilized but never restored, with furniture still visible through the windows of houses and goods still lining store shelves. It’s almost as if the entire population simply vanished overnight, leaving everything behind.
Bodie is 13 miles east of U.S. 395 on State Route 270, and the last three miles are rough dirt road. The park technically stays open year-round, but at about 8,400 feet, the road gets buried in snow. In winter, the only way in is by snowmobile or skis. Plan your visit between late May and October. As of 2026, summer hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The museum is open May 15 through October 31 and adult admission is $8.
Plan on two to three hours to experience the ghost town. The closest living towns with lodging are Bridgeport and Lee Vining. Hours and conditions are posted on the Bodie State Historic Park site.
Rhyolite, Nevada
Rhyolite went from a tent camp in 1904 to a town of several thousand people with electric lights, an opera house, banks, and a stock exchange by 1907. The financial panic that year started its decline, the main mine closed in 1911, and the town was nearly empty by 1916. The shell of the three-story Cook Bank, the old train depot, and a house built from glass bottles still stand.
Rhyolite sits four miles west of Beatty off State Highway 374 and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. There's no fee, it's open around the clock, and the short access road is passable in any car.
Next door, the free Goldwell Open Air Museum displays large outdoor sculptures, including ghostly plaster figures arranged as the Last Supper. Visit between October and April, since summer temperatures regularly top 100 degrees, and pair it with a day in Death Valley National Park, a short drive away. Beatty has the nearest motels. The National Park Service has a short history of the town.
Bannack, Montana
Montana's first major gold strike happened on Grasshopper Creek on July 28, 1862, and Bannack grew to more than 3,000 people within a year. It became the first capital of Montana Territory in 1864, but lost that title to Virginia City the next year. Bannack is also where vigilantes hanged Sheriff Henry Plummer in 1864 after accusing him of leading a criminal gang.
More than 50 derelict buildings line Main Street, and most are open to walk through, including the Hotel Meade and the old jail. Bannack State Park is about 25 miles west of Dillon, your best bet for comfortable lodging. The grounds are open year-round and the visitor center is open daily from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Vehicles with Montana plates get in free, and out-of-state vehicles pay a daily per-vehicle fee. For a livelier visit, time it for Bannack Days, held the third weekend in July.
St. Elmo, Colorado
Founded in 1880 as Forest City, St. Elmo reached about 2,000 residents during the silver and gold boom in Chalk Creek Canyon. But the mines declined, rail service ended in 1922, and the town emptied out. The Stark family kept the general store running for decades and were among the last to leave.
Today, 43 buildings still stand, including the schoolhouse and the rebuilt town hall and jail. A handful of residents still live here, and some buildings are privately owned, so stay off porches and out of fenced areas.
St. Elmo is about 16 miles up Chalk Creek Drive (County Road 162) from Nathrop, roughly 20 miles southwest of Buena Vista. The final stretch is graded gravel that standard cars can handle in summer, and the town sits at nearly 10,000 feet. The general store, which sells snacks and souvenirs, is open May through September. Make it a summer or early fall day trip with a soak at Mount Princeton Hot Springs on the way back, and stay in Buena Vista or Salida.
Colorado's official tourism site has more on the town.
South Pass City, Wyoming
Gold brought about 1,000 people to South Pass City after 1867, but the boom was over within five years. The town's lasting claim is political – saloon keeper William Bright introduced the 1869 bill that made Wyoming Territory the first government in the United States to grant women the right to vote, and resident Esther Hobart Morris became the first woman to serve as a justice of the peace in 1870.
Mining in the town boomed and busted several times before fading for good by the 1950s.
South Pass City State Historic Site is about 37 miles southwest of Lander. Its restored buildings hold original furnishings and exhibits, and guided tours cover the nearby Carissa Mine and mill. The buildings are open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from late May through mid-October, and the grounds stay open year-round when weather allows. A small admission fee applies, and current rates and tour times are on southpasscity.org.
Blue Heron, Kentucky
Blue Heron, also called Mine 18, was a coal camp run by the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company from 1937 until the mine closed in 1962. Coal camps were built to last only as long as the coal, and none of the original houses survived. The National Park Service now marks where the church, school, company store, and homes stood with open metal frames called "ghost structures," each with recorded interviews from former residents describing camp life. The coal tipple and its bridge over the Big South Fork River still stand.
Blue Heron is part of Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area and is open year-round with no entrance fee. Drive to the end of Mine 18 Road (Highway 742) about nine miles west of Stearns or ride the Big South Fork Scenic Railway from Stearns down into the gorge. The train runs seasonally and requires a ticket. The paths around the camp are short and mostly level. Stearns and Whitley City have the closest lodging, and Blue Heron Campground has 45 sites with water and electric hookups.
Thurmond, West Virginia
Thurmond was incorporated in 1900 and became the busiest stop on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway's New River line, handling more freight than Cincinnati and Richmond combined. Its depot saw as many as 75,000 passengers a year. The Depression, the shift to cars, and the closing of area mines drained the town. About five people still live there, and Thurmond remains an incorporated town.
Thurmond sits inside New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, seven miles down WV-25 from Glen Jean on a narrow, winding road. The restored 1904 depot serves as a seasonal visitor center open in summer and on fall weekends, and the Park Service's self-guided walking tour covers the bank, the hotel sites, and the coaling tower. Amtrak's Cardinal still stops here three days a week, but only as a flag stop for passengers with a reservation. Stay in Fayetteville, about half an hour away, and plan on October if you want fall color in the gorge.
Elkmont, Tennessee
Elkmont began as a logging town for the Little River Lumber Company in the early 1900s. Once the timber was cut, Knoxville families turned it into a summer retreat with cabins and a clubhouse along Jakes Creek. When Great Smoky Mountains National Park was created, many owners received lifetime leases, and the last of them left in the early 1990s. The cabins sat empty for years before the park began restoring them.
The restored cabins in the Daisy Town section, built between 1910 and 1935, are open to explore inside and out. Elkmont is off Little River Road about six miles west of Sugarlands Visitor Center near Gatlinburg, and the walk through Daisy Town is short and flat. Elkmont is also the center of the park's synchronous firefly viewing in late May and June, which requires winning a lottery through Recreation.gov. Gatlinburg and Townsend have the most lodging, and the Park Service's Daisy Town page has a guided tour you can load in the NPS app.
Old Cahawba, Alabama
Cahawba served as Alabama's first state capital from 1819 to 1826. Repeated flooding where the Alabama and Cahaba rivers meet pushed the capital to Tuscaloosa, but the town rebounded as a cotton-shipping port. During the Civil War, a Confederate prison known as Castle Morgan held Union soldiers here. The county seat moved to Selma in 1866, businesses and residents followed, and within a few decades the town was largely abandoned.
Old Cahawba Archaeological Park, run by the Alabama Historical Commission, preserves the old street grid, the brick columns of the Crocheron mansion, cemeteries, artesian wells, and a few standing buildings. As of 2026, the grounds are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day. Stop at the visitor center for a map, then drive or walk the streets. Selma, about 15 miles away, is the place to stay. Spring and fall are the best seasons since summers are hot and humid, and guided history and cemetery tours are listed on cahawba.com.
Kennecott, Alaska
In 1900, prospectors spotted green copper ore on a ridge above the Kennicott Glacier, and investors including the Guggenheim family and J.P. Morgan built a mill town and a 196-mile railroad to the coast to haul it out. From 1911 to 1938, Kennecott produced some of the richest copper ore ever mined. When the ore ran out, the company shut down and left much of the town behind. The red-and-white mill buildings, including a 14-story concentration mill, are now a National Historic Landmark inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.
Getting there is the hard part. From Anchorage it's seven to eight hours by car, including the 59-mile gravel McCarthy Road, which most rental car companies don't allow. The road ends at a footbridge, and seasonal shuttles carry visitors the last five miles. Small air taxis also fly in from Chitina and Glennallen. The park charges no entrance fee, and a guided tour is the only way inside the mill. Visit between June and early September, when shuttles and lodges operate, and plan at least two nights. Kennecott Glacier Lodge and the inns in McCarthy book up early. The Park Service's directions page covers each way in.
Most of these towns have no food or fuel on site, so fill up and pack lunch in the nearest town before you head out.
Which of these ghost towns have you visited, and which one would you add to the list? Tell us in the comments.
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