WELCOME TO

GHOST TOWN USA! ™

 

YOUR Favorite Ghost Town Website!

Home of the GHOST TOWN OF THE MONTH

Gary B. Speck

&

Gary B. Speck Publications
PO Box 1328
Moreno Valley, CA 92556-1328

 

Researching and exploring ghost towns throughout the

United States & Canada since 1968.

ONLINE SINCE 1994!

AND

CELEBRATING 30 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS PUBLICATION

MISSION STATEMENT

Preserving the history of America’s fading and vanished towns,

communities and other places of habitation through education. 

SITE MAP

What’s NEW at Ghost Town USA

 

LATEST UPDATE: Jun 14, 2008

 

In the past 30 days we’ve made these changes:

 

·         UPDATED our monthly feature: GHOST TOWN OF THE MONTH (Aug 04)

·         LINKS: 

·         GENEALOGY:  This has been real quiet, as I have not been spending any time researching my roots. 

·         GHOST TOWNS:  (Jan 06) – Began to add GPS coordinates, where known.  This will be ongoing through the year at the request of several readers.  Also posting updated state lists, adding numerous reader submissions – this has been a long time in coming!  Thanks to all who have submitted locations for inclusion on these pages.  As I have mentioned before, not all my ghost town info is posted, especially on states where I have extensive files.  I have at least a half-dozen states with well over 1000 locations each in my files for that state. 

1.        Updated the New York and Delaware pages.

2.       Added a GPS page to add GPS coordinates to my imprint Ghost Town USA column as featured monthly in Western & Eastern Treasures Magazine.

·         LICENSE PLATE COLLECTING:  Updated trade/want lists (Feb 06)

·         MISC: 

1.        I am currently looking for historical information and photographs on the Salton Sea area and Imperial County, CA. We are anticipating publication of a very detailed Ghost Town Guru Guide to the Salton Sea region in 2008.  I have received a lot of new information and photos from several readers. 

·         PLEASE NOTE:  IF you find any broken or dead links please advise.  IF you do, please let me know specifically which page the problem is on, as well as which link is broken.  I have over 350 individual web pages, along with many photos, so you need to be specific so I can find it AND fix it.  Thanks.

·         Freelance writing and photography Celebrating 30 years of continuous publication, with 517 articles (as of Dec, 2007) and well over 2500 photos published in 22 different publications.  My first published article was in 1978.

·         AUTHOR of the Book “Dust in the Wind – A Guide to American Ghost Towns”

• AUTHOR of the “Ghost Town Guru Guides”  

·         Contributing Editor for “Western & Eastern Treasures Magazine”

·         Author of THE monthly column  “Ghost Town USA”  

Featured monthly in Western & Eastern Treasures magazine, since April 1984!

·         SEARCHING FOR MY ROOTS THROUGH: GenealogY

License Plate Collecting:

 

·         Want List:

·         Trade List:

·         General collecting information:

 

License Plate Collecting clubs:

 

·         Automobile License Plate Collector's Association ( ALPCA )

·         Number Plate Collector's Club-Australia

1.     Visit NPCC’s main website.

2.     North American membership coordinator for NPCC

GHOST TOWNS

Those two words promise adventure to thousands of Americans who take to the highways and byways of this country in search of these lost or forgotten habitations.

But what are they?

Curled wood battens peel away from the facade above a sagging, weathered canopy, standing only by virtue of a few rusty nails. Glassless windows stare blankly onto a rutted dirt street overgrown with native vegetation. Flaking paint of an unreadable advertisement is barely visible on the desiccated, chocolate colored wood wall. A rusting bed frame leans against the storefront under a broken window with a faded "Visitors Wel..." painted in gold paint. A slight breeze blows through open window casements and doorless entries, rustling the decaying debris of a dead town. This is all that remains of the hopes and dreams of hundreds of people. People whose hopes and dreams have evaporated and blown away like Dust in the Wind.

So, what is a ghost town?

"A Ghost Town is a town or community that at one time had a commercial or population center, and is either wholly abandoned or faded greatly from its peak, and now is just a shadow of its former self."

Ghost towns are one of America's least understood and appreciated historical treasures. Unfortunately the ones with tangible remains, especially the classic ghost town with a street full of abandoned buildings, are disappearing far too rapidly. A large percentage of ghost towns left in the United States are either barren or rubbled sites. Another classification of ghost towns could better be considered “semi” or “near” ghost towns. These locations still contain a few die-hard residents, along with a collection of abandoned or unused building--the remains of a dying town. Lastly many well-preserved ghost towns fall under government or private protection and are open to the public.

Historians estimate there may be as many as 50,000 ghost towns scattered across the United States. Obviously there is no one source for information on all those locations, but the man that CNN called "The Ghost Town Guru" is working on it!

If you like the lost and forgotten sites, classic ghost towns, near-ghost towns, or state protected ones, Ghost Town USA has them all. You can read all about them monthly in the pages of Western & Eastern Treasures Magazine, or you can explore different locations on this website.  Please note that the ghost towns featured on these pages are only a tiny part of our entire file of ghost towns.

When you are out exploring, always remember how fragile these rickety relics of Americana are.  Always treat them with respect, and please abide by the Ghost Towner’s Code of Ethics.  In that way, they may last a little longer, and be available for someone else (or YOU!) to visit next year.

To begin exploring these rickety relics of Americana, join "The Ghost Town Guru" ™ on a journey into the world of

GHOST TOWN USA!

 

"The Ghost Town Guru"
and "The Ghost Town Guru's Guides to the Ghost Towns of ***"
are trademarks of Gary B. Speck Publications.

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To visit outside sites of interest check out our links pages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entire contents of this website are
copyright © 1997-2008
by Gary B. Speck Publications

ALL rights reserved.