A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed or ended for any reason. The town may also have declined because of natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, prolonged droughts, extreme heat or extreme cold, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, pollution, or nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents. The term can sometimes refer to cities, towns, and neighborhoods that, though still populated, are significantly less so than in past years; for example, those affected by high levels of unemployment and dereliction.
Elizabeth is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, on the east bank of the Monongahela River, where Pennsylvania Route 51 crosses, 15 miles (24 km) upstream (south) of Pittsburgh and close to the county line. The population was 1,398 at the 2020 census. The borough of Elizabeth is entirely contained within the 15037 USPS ZIP code. The local school district is the Elizabeth Forward School District. The borough is home to neighborhoods Walker Heights and Town Hill. Elizabeth Borough is the birthplace of Town Hill Hockey established in 1978.
Lock Haven is the county seat of Clinton County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Located near the confluence of the West Branch Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Creek, it is the principal city of the Lock Haven Micropolitan Statistical Area, itself part of the Williamsport–Lock Haven combined statistical area. At the 2010 census, Lock Haven's population was 9,772.
Centralia is a borough and near-ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Its population has declined from 1,000 in 1980 to five residents in 2020 because a coal mine fire has been burning beneath the borough since 1962. Centralia, part of the Bloomsburg–Berwick metropolitan area, is the least-populated municipality in Pennsylvania. It is completely surrounded by Conyngham Township.
Ashland is a borough in Schuylkill County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Pottsville. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. A small part of the borough also lies in Columbia County, although all of the population resided in the Schuylkill County portion as of the 2020 census. The borough lies in the anthracite coal region of eastern Pennsylvania. Settled in 1850, Ashland was incorporated in 1857, and was named for Henry Clay's estate near Lexington, Kentucky. The population in 1900 was 6,438, and in 1940, 7,045, but had dropped to 2,471 at the 2020 census.
The Knox Mine disaster was a mining accident on January 22, 1959, at the River Slope Mine in Jenkins Township, Pennsylvania.
Pithole, or Pithole City, is a ghost town in Cornplanter Township, Venango County, Pennsylvania, United States, about 6 miles (9.7 km) from Oil Creek State Park and the Drake Well Museum, the site of the first commercial oil well in the United States. Pithole's sudden growth and equally rapid decline, as well as its status as a "proving ground" of sorts for the burgeoning petroleum industry, made it one of the most famous of oil boomtowns.
The Cumberland Valley Railroad was an early railroad in Pennsylvania, United States, originally chartered in 1831 to connect with Pennsylvania's Main Line of Public Works. Freight and passenger service in the Cumberland Valley in south central Pennsylvania from near Harrisburg to Chambersburg began in 1837, with service later extended to Hagerstown, Maryland, and then extending into the Shenandoah Valley to Winchester, Virginia. It employed up to 1,800 workers.
The Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, also known as the Mauch Chunk and Summit Railroad and occasionally shortened to Mauch Chunk Railway, was a coal-hauling railroad in the mountains of Pennsylvania that was built in 1827 and operated until 1932. It was the second gravity railway constructed in the United States, which was used by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company to transport coal from Summit Hill downhill to the Lehigh canal.
Connellsville is a ghost town located high in the mountains of Coal Canyon, near the head of Huntington Canyon in the northwestern corner of Emery County, Utah, United States. A coal mining and coke manufacturing center, Connellsville was the first settlement in what is now Emery County, inhabited from 1874 to 1878. The town now lies beneath the waters of Electric Lake.
The Ghost Town Trail is a rail trail in Western Pennsylvania that runs 36 miles (58 km) between Black Lick, Indiana County, and Ebensburg, Cambria County. Established in 1991 on the right-of-way of the former Ebensburg and Black Lick Railroad, the trail follows the Blacklick Creek and passes through many ghost towns that were abandoned in the early 1900s with the decline of the local coal mining industry. Open year-round to cycling, hiking, and cross-country skiing, the trail is designated a National Recreation Trail by the United States Department of the Interior.
The Mahanoy Plane was a railroad Incline plane located along northern edge of the borough of Frackville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania in the Coal Region of the United States. GPS coordinates of the abandoned site are, DMS: N 40° 47’ 14.817” W 76° 13’ 58.652” -or- DD: 40.7874493, -76.232959.
Bovard is an unincorporated community and coal town in Hempfield Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The community is located near U.S. Route 119, 2.3 miles (3.7 km) northeast of Greensburg and is also the former home of baseball standout, Anthony Marazza. Marazza, dubbed "MR. BOVARD", is notable for leading Bovard to 6 championships in the past decade in the ICL and Pittsburgh Leagues.
The Morewood massacre was an armed labor-union conflict in Morewood, Pennsylvania, in Westmoreland County, west of the present-day borough Mount Pleasant in 1891.
The Wyoming Division Canal was an anthracite canal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It was a branch of the North Branch Canal, which was one of only two major canals in Pennsylvania to be owned by the state. The creek went from West Nanticoke to Pittston, going through Luzerne County.
