A ghost town, deserted city, or abandoned city is an abandoned village, town, or city, 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 disasters. 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.
Sumpter is a city in Baker County, Oregon, United States. The population was 204 at the 2010 census. Sumpter is named after Fort Sumter by its founders. The name was inspired by a rock as smooth and round as a cannonball, which reminded a local resident of the American Civil War and Fort Sumter.
Bannack is a ghost town in Beaverhead County, Montana, United States, located on Grasshopper Creek, approximately 11 miles (18 km) upstream from where Grasshopper Creek joins with the Beaverhead River south of Dillon. Founded in 1862, the town is a National Historic Landmark managed by the state of Montana as Bannack State Park.
Bayhorse is a ghost town in Custer County, Idaho, United States, founded in 1877. After a new gold mine failed, silver was discovered in the area and a mine was started. Bayhorse was originally established by the silver mine.
Canemah was an early settlement in the U.S. state of Oregon located near the Willamette River. Canemah was annexed to Oregon City in 1928.
Cornucopia is a ghost town built during the gold mining boom of the 1880s in Eastern Oregon, United States. The town was officially platted in 1886 and was a mining town with various levels of success until it was abandoned in 1942. It is now primarily a tourist attraction as a ghost town. It is located east of Baker City high in the mountains of Pine Valley almost due north of Halfway, Oregon, on Oregon Route 86.
Wolf Creek Inn State Heritage Site is a state park in the U.S. state of Oregon, administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.
Buncom is an abandoned mining town at the confluence of the Little Applegate River and Sterling Creek in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It is approximately 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Medford, at an elevation of 1,683 feet (513.0 m) above sea level. The site is promoted by the local historical society as a ghost town.
Sterlingville was a boomtown along Sterling Creek in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, once home to the largest hydraulic mine in Oregon. It has since been abandoned and destroyed.
Placer is an unincorporated community in Josephine County, Oregon, United States, on Grave Creek a few miles east of Interstate 5. Established during the local gold mining boom, it is considered a ghost town.
Macksburg is an unincorporated community in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States four miles southeast of Canby. It is located on Gribble Prairie between the Pudding River and the Molalla River.
Bourne is a ghost town in Baker County, Oregon, United States about 7 miles (11 km) north of Sumpter in the Blue Mountains. It lies on Cracker Creek and is within the Wallowa–Whitman National Forest. Platted in 1902, the former gold mining boomtown is considered a ghost town today.
Galena is an unincorporated community in Grant County, Oregon, United States, about 20 miles (32 km) from Austin Junction in the Blue Mountains. It is on the Middle Fork John Day River in the Malheur national forest. The former gold mining camp is considered a ghost town.
Susanville is an unincorporated community in Grant County, Oregon, United States, in the Blue Mountains about two miles up Elk Creek from Galena. The place was started as a gold mining camp in 1862 or 1864 and is now considered a ghost town.
Nonpareil is an unincorporated historic community in Douglas County, Oregon, United States. It is about 8 miles (13 km) east of Sutherlin, near Calapooya Creek. The population of the area was about 202 in 2000. Nonpareil was the birthplace of novelist H. L. Davis.
Polly Bemis House was the home of pioneers to Idaho County, Idaho, USA, Charles Bemis and his wife Polly Bemis, who lived alongside the Salmon River in the late 19th and early 20th century. Polly was a Chinese American former teenage slave whose story became a biographical novel and was fictionalized in the 1991 film A Thousand Pieces of Gold.
Clifton is an unincorporated community in Clatsop County, Oregon, United States. It is located north of U.S. Route 30, about nine miles northwest of Westport on the south bank of the Columbia River. It is on Clifton Channel across from Tenasillahe Island.
Randolph is an unincorporated community in Coos County, Oregon, United States, founded as a "black sand" gold mining boomtown in the 1850s. Although it is considered a ghost town because there are no significant structures left at the site, the USGS classifies Randolph as a populated place. It is on the north bank the Coquille River about 7 miles (11 km) north of Bandon and about 3 miles east of the Pacific Ocean.
Hobsonville is an unincorporated community in Tillamook County, Oregon, United States. Although it is considered a ghost town, it is still classified as a populated place by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Hobsonville is on the east shore of Tillamook Bay, about 2 miles south of Garibaldi via U.S. Route 101 or about a mile from Garibaldi across Miami Cove.
Imhaha was a stern-wheel steamboat which operated on the Snake River in the Pacific Northwest in 1903. The steamer was built, launched, placed in service, and wrecked within a single year. The rapids on the Snake river had only rarely been surmounted by a steamboat, and generally only with the aid of a steel cable for lining used to winch the entire boat upstream through the rapids. After only a few trips, Imnaha was destroyed in Mountain Sheep rapids, just downstream from the mining settlement of Eureka, on the Oregon side of the river.
