anyone else fascinated with ghost towns?

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after seeing a spot about a town called Centralia, PA on "Life After people", a series on the History Channel, I've been having this growing fascination with ghost towns.

I'm afraid all we'd have in Maine are old WWII forts and fishing towns or boat yards. Nothing too inland like you'd see out West where a real town just up and left due to lack of resources or whatever.

Sorta kinda. When ever i'm driving somewhere far, traveling through rural areas I always drive by abandoned farms and houses with roofs falling in and they do utterly fascinate me. I always have an urge to pull over and hope over the fence and go take pictures and walk through them. I've made mental note of a dozen or so and where they are at so tha I can take a drive out to photograph them.

I wish they didn't tear down Centralia. Now only a few buildings stand. They should have left them in ruins and let them fall apart and let nature take over them. It would have made the town more interesting.


I have been fascinated by ghost towns since my teens. I have actually been to one in Montana which was Bannack. I think only one person lives there because I saw a house there and I could tell it was being lived in because it was kept maintained and it had furniture inside. Plus it had a nice yard.

I am also fascinated by abandoned buildings and I always want to know the history of them like why was it abandoned. We have hundreds of ghost towns in the USA. We even have a few that have actually disappeared like Bayocean, Oregon. It fell into the sea and most buildings were moved or demolished and some fell into the sea. You can't even get there by car, you have to walk there. There used to be a road to get there but that also eroded away by the ocean.


Sometimes I wonder if Portland is going to be the next Detroit or Gary, IN, or St. Louis because our state is the second highest rate of unemployment. Without jobs, people might move out of here to live elsewhere for their new jobs and bam we end up with bunch of vacant buildings and they will be left to fall apart and be vandalized by people and having nature take over them. Hopefully the economy will get better before that even happens. It be sad if that happened to our city.

I am quite interested in ghost towns now you mention it. I don't know if we really have any in the UK, and I've never actually seen one for real, but I have vague images in my mind from films (mostly westerns) of ghost towns in the USA.

There was a town in England called Dunwich that kinds of fascinates me. The town sank underneath the sea, and the beach nearby is said to be haunted.
Just down the coast from Dunwich is a place called Orford Ness, where the Ministry of Defence used to conduct secret military tests. It still contains all these old pagodas that have not been used for years. It's not quite a ghost town, but I still find the place quite fascinating.

I'm quite interested in derelict buildings in general. There's quite an interesting website called Derelict London devoted solely to the derelict buildings in our capital, though looking at it can make me quite angry at the powers-that-be who have let all those buildings fall into disrepair. Oddly enough, I can't seem to find on the site and pictures (possibly) London's most famous derelict building, Battersea Power Station (you know, the one from the Pink Floyd album cover).

Apart from all this, we have quite a few ancient ruins over here, but I don't think they really count. They usually attract too many tourists anyway.

I've been fascinated with them since I first learned of the phenomenon (in a Lassie episode). I'd have loved to see one, but there are none here... Such an intriguing idea...

I am very much interested in those sorts of things. When I read about ghost towns or cities (such as Chernoby) I just get lost in thought. Really, like some sort of reverie takes over me and I begin imagining what it would be like to walk through the streets of such places. It is a bit eerie, but fascinating.

Sorry- double post

Mittens, did you know that you can take a tour of Chernobyl? Chernobyl Tour I'd love to go there one day.

Here in British Columbia there is a old gold rush town called Barkerville. When the gold left, the people left. It's neat though, opium den, saloons, old houses. but they made it a "tourist" destination. at least they have girls do the can can!

Yes I am

I have many photos of some of the ghost towns I've been in. I love reading up on the histories of each town before exploring them. It's like a natural high!

I've also risked tresspassing into private property just to get some pics.

Maybe I'll post some pics if anyone's interested.

^ I am definately interested

Cool!

I just needed to get them loaded on here first.

They are awesome, love he idea or restoring abandoned buildings and towns like that, it just makes me sad to see them so unloved but I still adore exploring them. Am currently trying to get in for a bachelors degree in architecture so I can maybe do this kinda thing whenever I like.