Of the cabins, cottages, hotel, landing strip, post office and more that served the resort's hundreds of thousands of guests until it closed in the mid 1980s, a few exquisite places still remain undemolished or horribly vandalized. In the winters, it offered theatre and skiing, the first place in the world to use artificial snow on its slopes. In its heyday, the Grossinger's Catskill Resort was the sort of seasonal retreat featured in Dirty Dancing, where well-to-do families in the 1950s spent their summers lounging by its two massive swimming pools, playing golf or tennis, and enjoying the lush 1,200-acre surroundings just two hours north of New York City.

Today, a handful of residents have returned to live in South Pass City, and the South Pass City State Historic Site features more than 30 preserved historic structures dating from the city's heyday. Homes, stores, hotels and saloons fell into disrepair, with the last of the pioneer families moving away in 1949. Despite throwing themselves into the back-breaking work, the prospectors didn't find more large gold deposits, so by the mid 1870s, only 100 people remained. Within a year, the population had swelled to about 2,000 people, mostly men, and saloons, brothels, and the boisterous and dangerous life of a frontier town were in full swing. Located about 10 miles north of the Oregon Trail on the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains, throngs of prospectors soon descended on the area despite the severe conditions, hoping to also strike it rich.

One even apparently has an “internationally acclaimed” restaurant! Ready to plan your trip, or take a virtual one? Check out this roundup of the best ghost towns America has to offer.Īnother well-preserved mining town in the American West, South Pass City was founded in 1867 when the large Carissa gold deposit was discovered near the Sweetwater River. Not all of them are totally defunct, either. Not all of them are rumored to actually be haunted places, but some do have spirits of former business owners or residents wandering around the general stores or old jails. They’re located in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, New Mexico, New York, West Virginia, and more. There are ghost towns all over the U.S., if you’re brave enough for a visit.

Now, many have been untouched for over a hundred years (yet some still have a ton of historic buildings somehow still standing).

Most of them were once prosperous mining towns filled with people hoping to make it rich by discovering gold or silver. The abandoned cities stretch all throughout America, and are rumored to be extra eerie. Though there are some seriously spooky haunted hotels out there, these ghost towns are almost more frightening. ‘Tis the season for DIY costumes, creepy décor, and scary stories.

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