Ever been to a Ghost Town?

[dragonrider]

Itâ??s always an eerie and poignant experience, walking through the ruins of a once vibrant community. Everywhere you look, you can see the evidence of life, but now all is in decay. A lost place, littered with the detritus of lives let go. The color leached away, leaving only ashen shades of gray.

Some Ghost Towns are the result of sudden disaster in which everyone abandoned the community suddenly, right in the middle of doing something --- tables set with plates and silverware and meals left uneaten, beds made up but never to be slept in, stories left unfinished.

More common are those Ghost Towns where the thing that brought everyone together in the first place disappeared --- the mine played out, the well ran dry, the crops failed. The community drifted away slowly, looking for the thing they lost. It makes you wonder what it was like for the last stubborn ones who held out as long as possible. And why did they stay after the life was gone from the place? How long did they linger? You also wonder if any of the departed gathered together in some other place. Did they manage to keep any part of their community together in a new home?

Ever been to a Ghost Town?

[McLeodGanja]

There are apparently loads of abandoned hamlets in the Highlands of Scotland. I intend to vist them some day, and stay there for a night or two.

[chisme]

well the entire underground of london is a ghost town,

hundreds of tunnels the size of the average train tunnel spanning out all other the place,

lots of unused world war bunkers, aswell as used and sealed up ones (for unknown reasons)

lots of unused tube stations too built ready for use then never used and left to stand unseen for years and years shutters never opened ticket offices never used,

for some reason i find myself fucking intrested in this stuff i mean what under me right now? i read on a website a guy explored 19 underground unknown bunkers and found in one a case of gas masks and a case of single shot rifles, but due to the moisture the metal of the rilfes had fused together.

[ToDrunkToFish]

When I went to Mexico City we went like an hour or two to the outskirts. I forgot the town name but it was a huge Silver mining town.

Now if anyone knows anything about Mexico City theres a shitload of mountains. We went to this town that was on the side of a mountain in the middle of fucking knowhere almost. It was real cool we went into Cave tunnels and entrances. Checked out some places but we took off cause it really was spooky especially the tunnels.

And none but 20 mins later we're at another place just like it but busstling and busy as all hell mostly this town was Selling the Silver that was bein extracted even farther out.

[StOnEdMoNk]

i been to 2 ghost towns old mining towns called virginia city one in montana and the other nevada

[Nightcrewman]

When Margaret Thatcher effectively closed down Scotland by systematically destroying our coal, steel and ship building industries there were a number of ghost towns created it is pitifull to drive through these places now the soul has been ripped from them, only now that we have taken the first steps towards independence can we start to regenrate these towns an villages.

Ghost Town by the Specials is a track worth listening to it can be dowloaded from various sites if anybody is interested.

Cheeers

NCM

[stinkyattic]

Dragonrider- you write beautifully.
NCM- You ever listen to any Oysterband? 'Trawler' is an absolutely spectacular album.

[Nightcrewman]

Dragonrider- you write beautifully.
NCM- You ever listen to any Oysterband? 'Trawler' is an absolutely spectacular album.

Yes I've got to agree there, beautifully written.

No I have not listened to Oysterband but I will now I shall let you know what I think once I have downloaded onto my nice new Sony Walkman MP3 player santa brought me.

Cheers

NCM

[stinkyattic]

NCM, in particular, their beautiful rendition of the classic 'coal not dole' is what made me think of that album in response to this thread.
But 'another quiet night in England', 'granite years', and especially 'the lost and found' give me the chills they are so beautiful. I really like folk rock. Their album 'The Shouting End of Life' is more rocking and political, and 'We'll be there' is a VERY VERY well done track by any standards. The references to the Crown's historic supression of Celtic tradition don't go unnoticed either.

[GraziLovesMary]

Loads... I am drawn to the distressingly nostalgic overtone that blankets ghost towns like a light fog. That mist, nearly imperceptible to the eye, that blurs all edges, and exaggerates movement in the peripheral vision. Alaska is loaded with towns that once supported gold mining and small trade. The mines dried up, and the trade route changed... everybody just packed up and left. Sometimes local natives would take over a town left for dead.

With the right kind of ears, you can hear echoes of the lives of the people who walked those streets regularly. Phantom smells tickle the nostril so enticingly.. so fleeting.. you could almost place that smell if you could but catch one more whiff of it...

Hairs on my body will stand up when I cross their path; memories.. remnants... residual energy left over from the people who walked these steps many times over. Tracing and retracing their steps in pre-programmed fashion. I never see them. I dont know if its because I am not looking with the right eyes, or rather because they do not want to be seen by me. But I always know when they are around. I feel empowered.. a vigorous and manic energy, slightly disconcerting, but invigorating none-the-less.

The sadness of a ghost town penetrates everything. The memories that are left behind are always sad.. the happy ones are rarely left behind, but the sad ones... they permeate more than just our 4 dimensions of space-time. It is this residual low-frequency energy that draws me the most. I dont know if I feed on it, or what, but it is compelling all the same.


Europe has some fantastically ancient sites of abandonment. Some are veritable ghost towns, while others are analagous; stone structures such as stonehenge, the many roman baths that dot the continent, the destroyed bunkers at Idaho(I think thats the one) beach in Normandy... all different settings, but they all share that same melancholy feeling of nostalgia. As if the remnant energies realize they are nothing more than memories of a time nearly forgotten.

[happiestmferoutthere]

I live in Northern California, in "The Gold Country". There are oodles of old abandoned mining towns, every couple of miles. Very cool. I'm a history nut so I can spend hours exploring them, and then go home and research them on the internet. (A VERY colorful history those miners had)
Some of the old mining towns are restored very beautifully and some stand the way they stood when the miners left after the gold "ran out" 100 years ago.
One of my very favorite things to do is jump in the car and go find old towns.There are sooooo many here.

[dragonrider]

Dragonrider- you write beautifully.


Thank you. I can have my moments. Although I have to admit that I stole the phrase "detritus of lives let go" from an article in a recent National Geographic. The rest is all mine, but that phrase stuck with me, and I had to use it. The article is about abandoned towns in the northern Plains. It is very well written, and does a good job of capturing the sorrow of these emptied places. It is one of the things that got me thinking about ghost towns.

The other thing that got me thinking about abandoned and dying places was The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I saw No Country for Old Men, and decided I should read a book by Cormac McCarthy. It's very depressing and a hard one to recommend, but it is probably going to be counted among the great books. It's more about how the human spirit deals with hopelessness than about ghost towns per se, but it is set in a dying world, and the descriptions of the doomed and wasted places are very moving. The difference I suppose is that when a ghost town is abandoned, nature comes to take it back, but in this book, nature is dying too.

I've had doomed places on my mind lately.


Ghost Town by the Specials is a track worth listening to it can be dowloaded from various sites if anybody is interested.

Ghost Town is a great song and one that takes me back to my youth. Thanks for remiding me of it. If I knew how to properly insert a YouTube video I would, but here is the link:

YouTube - The Specials - Ghost Town (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28TeUbYvXS0)



The sadness of a ghost town penetrates everything. The memories that are left behind are always sad.. the happy ones are rarely left behind, but the sad ones... they permeate more than just our 4 dimensions of space-time. It is this residual low-frequency energy that draws me the most. I dont know if I feed on it, or what, but it is compelling all the same.


Grazi, I knew you would have something interesting to say about ghost towns...

[dragonrider]

I never mentioned the ghost towns I have visited. I've mostly been to the dead mining towns of California and Nevada --- booms towns gone bust when the mines played out. I've been to a lot of abandoned towns in and around Death Valley and into the old mines as well. I've also been to the ruins of the Anasazi in the southwest and to the amazing Mayan and Aztec ruins of Mexico, which are far more impressive than the old clapboard buildings of the abandoned boom towns here in the west, but somehow you don't FEEL the ghosts in those places the way you do in these western ghost towns --- maybe they are too far removed in time and culture. I want to visit the ruins of Europe and Asia, I want to see the ancient monuments of Stonehenge and the pyramids of Egypt, the remnants of Greek and Roman temples, and I want to see the places that were incinerated in an instant like Pompei, but I also think that they will not connect with me in the same way the ghost towns of the west do.

[BudGrower]

That sounds like a great place to herbalize, in a Ghost Town. Imagine, especially if you are all alone and nobody around.

[dragonrider]

The Ghost Town is also a great meatphor. You hear the term "Ghost Town" used figuratively a lot lately.

[stinkyattic]

I can't say these towns have given up the ghost quite yet, but the depressed mill towns of rural New England are like an old creature too sad to live but not quite too sick to justify euthanizing. The grand Victorian and Italianate mill owners' mansions have been tar-shingle-sided and chopped into studio apartments, their ornate woodwork covered or gone. The wide main streets, lined with vacant shops displaying nothing but dusty 'for rent' signs in their cracked windows, are quiet save for the occasional elderly person in faded clothes walking slowly along the worn sidewalks of his hometown. The mills themselves sit dark and silent. There's no clacking of a mechanical loom or squeaking of large wood and steel gears powering dozens of lathes and presses. Graffiti decorates their crumbling brick, the freshest paint they've seen in nearly a century. Pigeons flutter in and out through missing panes. And still the rivers flow by that once powered the mills, which themselves are now nothing more than a feature of the landscape to someone watching from the other side.

[dragonrider]

Now, who's being poetic? That was very well done!

The kinds of places you are describing are almost sadder than those that have already been abandoned. There are a few former lumber mill towns in California like that. And there are a couple of towns have were bypassed by the highway only 10 or 15 years ago and they are slowly dwindling.

[DreadConches]

You guys are depressing me.
Has anyone ever seen Silent Hill? The movie setting is based on a PA town called Centralia. The town was inhabited until and coal fire started and it had to be evacuated. The fire eventually spread and they have been unable to put it out (the fire started in 1962). The fire will burn on for a long time. There used to be many homes although they have almost all been demolished. I have not been there myself but am going sometime in 2008.

[Frickr]

well the entire underground of london is a ghost town,

hundreds of tunnels the size of the average train tunnel spanning out all other the place,

lots of unused world war bunkers, aswell as used and sealed up ones (for unknown reasons)

lots of unused tube stations too built ready for use then never used and left to stand unseen for years and years shutters never opened ticket offices never used,

for some reason i find myself fucking intrested in this stuff i mean what under me right now? i read on a website a guy explored 19 underground unknown bunkers and found in one a case of gas masks and a case of single shot rifles, but due to the moisture the metal of the rilfes had fused together.


i was watching a show on the london underground. there is one place down there, where they have a whole room full of bones. i think they call it the room of death. but when they ran out of room in the graveyards they just piled all the bodies in there. people go down there and stack the sskulls and different bones into these big works of art. pretty cool shit i think. be creapy but i think it would be cool.

but the town on either side of me is all but abandond, one has 14 the other has 25 i think. its fun to go through all the old farm houses around the area, you can find alot of cool shit.

[apocolips31]

Yea I had to drive through one in North Carolina to get to a cabin we were staying in. It was really dark and spooky.

[dragonrider]

As time goes by, I understand better and better those that linger on after a place dies.

[DAY-DREAMER-MAN]

i go to a Ghost Town all the time i have one like 40 min away from my town:jointsmile:

[psychocat]

The place I grew up in became one after they closed the coal mines in the late 70's early 80's.
Thatcherism didn't do much for the north east of England :mad:

[iTokethings]

personally i dont rate Stonehenge's appearance highly
i should do abit of reading on it first tho

[silkyblue]

Itâ??s always an eerie and poignant experience, walking through the ruins of a once vibrant community. Everywhere you look, you can see the evidence of life, but now all is in decay. A lost place, littered with the detritus of lives let go. The color leached away, leaving only ashen shades of gray.

Some Ghost Towns are the result of sudden disaster in which everyone abandoned the community suddenly, right in the middle of doing something --- tables set with plates and silverware and meals left uneaten, beds made up but never to be slept in, stories left unfinished.



yes great fantastic writting, too bad you copied some :thumbsup: writting is a true gift. Do you love it?


MY TAKE

This planet isnt perfect I do believe in ghost

I felt the presents of one, in San Diego, Del Corronado, Me hubby and George our friEnd [george smokes and his wife, good clean fun couple, they had j's numbered as #1, #2 and #3, we stayed at the same hotel, UAW, convention, free trip man~

Del Corronado, in San Diego, that hotel is way sweet ! It is haunted def!

I felt her or him ghost, in human form, normal spanish guy, bellboy, parading around the SAID HAUNTED, room, unless we fell for a prank, mayb the Del had that arranged like that to open that door?
Wii were trashed !


you betcha that line to the 3'd vorld ain fer away, the world is far from perfect, and those 9 planets in our galaxy are here for a reason


great writting ! ty

[palerider7777]

i've been to over 100 easy, as i've been prospecting for close to 20 years now, and have even slept in old cabins from the 1850s or so. i recall 1 time well a few times but 1 time my dad and i were driving late one nite way up in the colorado rockies about 40 miles south of a place called estes park, and for people that love beautiful places that is one of them.anyways back to it we got caught in a blizzard, and we saw a sign that said "open" rooms available. so we stoped in and it was a lil house so we rented the room for 130 bucks and we were like ok wheres the room? and the old lady said oh u get back on this road in front drive 10mi south then turn right and go 30 mi take another right and u will see the old ghost town with a sign, and u will see the cabin thats where u sleep. so we went and found it and it was so old from the 1850's the glass in the windows was the old type b4 they perfected glass. so when u look through it's like the glass blocks u have in say a bathroom shower area where u can't really see clearly through it, and the cabin was built on site from the trees and rocks around it. and u could here every noise outside and the wood the cabin was built with rubbing together as the wind blew. and it was just as cold inside as it was outside, as there was nothin but 1x8 or so board and batten style. and the ower had'nt done any upgrades to the cabin as there was no elctric, and still had the old oil lamps and a fireplace for heat.

but other than that iv'e been in almost everyone from co to az,ca,mt,or,wa,nm,wy,id and i've always wanted to go to ak but never made it. as i carried a gun with me and u can't take it across into canada or atleast back then u could'nt. and im not going out in the wild with no protection thats just stupid. besides i've had plenty of encounters with bears,wolfs,wolverines and even porcupines lol iv'e even been to 1 ghost town that had 100's of hummingbirds everywhere.knock on wood i've never had to use my gun just my cam so far:).
but then again theres alot of ghost towns on private land. so be careful and just ask if theres signs posted as most time the owners don't care as long as u don't tear anything up. iv'e even made deals with land owners where if i found anything we would split it but even more than what u find the value of the exp is worth more than what u find.

[mushaboom]

anyone know of any ghost towns in virginia? sounds like a perfect place to plant some ghost plants

[irkenelite]

no but i wouldnt mind seeing one someday. there are quite a few in southern NM that are supposedly good fun.

[Humboldt215]

As a kid I remember driving between Redding, Calif and Burney, calif and seeing ALOT of old gold mines on the mountain sides, I always did want to go back there someday and explore a bit.

Kinda dangerous tho.

[HiAllTheTime10]

hey i live in a ghost town in the 30's n 40's there was around 15,00 people who lived here then they mined all the lead out and put the rocks they crushed and pulled outta the ground and made huge mountains of chat great to play on but then the town got smaller around 1600 and we was a 1 A school and it keep gettin smaller 2 years ago population 800 now 300 but the government is buying every one's homes cause they say it's to polluted from the lead im 19 and graduted last year they shut down our sports program so i changed schools but if you dont believe me google it Picher, OKlahoma in the next year it's gone!!!!!!!! sucks i love this place

[Tubi2b]

the only thing close to that ive been to was Pompeii. It was cool because on pillars, you could actually tell which way the ash from mt vesuvius came from because one side it normal old rock and the other looks like volcanic rock.

did you know they had fast food type places? around the city are these buildings with a counter around the front with big pots in the counter and a hole in the top. So you basically go by and get food from one of the jugs through the hole.

[mushaboom]

ive always thought the same thing. pompeii was awesome back in the day before it got burnt up. have you seen the mural in that one house in pompeii that shows what it used to look like. i wish it was still there. it was sad to see those people trapped inside the ash. imagine that, sitting around one day and a volcano erupts over you. bad times.

[dragonrider]

the only thing close to that ive been to was Pompeii. It was cool because on pillars, you could actually tell which way the ash from mt vesuvius came from because one side it normal old rock and the other looks like volcanic rock.

did you know they had fast food type places? around the city are these buildings with a counter around the front with big pots in the counter and a hole in the top. So you basically go by and get food from one of the jugs through the hole.

Mmmmmmm... Pompei buffet...

Would you like to get fried with that?

[CaptainDankNuggets]

Where I live there somes keattles and by these keattles theres this town called China Town it just seems like a total ghost town like its not really even a town its just a bunch of houses there are by each other theres like 25 people tops that live there, no more than that and like no ones ever really outside its alwas just quite and thats pretty much why it seems like a ghost, like one time I actually cruised through it and on this day it was summer, some people had a bonfire going and there was like 15 or more people sitting around this fire, like it was pretty much the whole town, it was nuts like you usually never see anybody.