Ghost Town Directory

California ghost towns

Towns
29
Counties
18
With photographs
18

The California ghost towns people look for most.

All 29 towns

All California ghost towns

  1. 01AlmaSanta Clara County3 min readAlma, California, a stage stop founded in 1871 in the Santa Cruz Mountains, was bulldozed and flooded in 1952 when Lenihan Dam created Lexington Reservoir.
  2. 02AmboySan Bernardino County3 min readAmboy, California has no permanent residents, yet its 1959 Roy's Motel sign still stands over Route 66. Founded in 1883, it fell when I-40 bypassed it in 1973.
  3. 03BodieMono County6 min readBodie, California grew to 10,000 people and 65 saloons by 1880. Trace the gold camp's killings and long decline to the 200 buildings that survive today.
  4. 04Cerro GordoInyo County7 min readCerro Gordo, California, was the Inyo Mountains silver camp whose bullion helped build Los Angeles. Explore its violent history and the ghost town today.
  5. 05DeadwoodPlacer County4 min readDeadwood, California was a Placer County gold camp of 500 miners that collapsed by 1855. Today only a cemetery and stone wells remain east of Foresthill.
  6. 06DrawbridgeAlameda County5 min readDrawbridge, California, was a duck-hunting resort built on pilings in a bay marsh. Vandals and sinking mud finished it, and trains now pass its last cabins.
  7. 07Eagle MountainRiverside County7 min readEagle Mountain, California, was Kaiser Steel's desert iron town of 4,000. Explore its gold-era roots, 1983 shutdown, 2003 prison riot, and $22.5 million sale.
  8. 08EldoradovilleLos Angeles County4 min readEldoradoville, California was a San Gabriel Canyon gold-rush town with six saloons and Wells Fargo shipments — erased overnight by the Great Flood of 1862.
  9. 09GerstleyInyo County5 min readGerstley, California was a borax company siding that lost its railroad and its mine, yet its borate lives on in the glaze recipes of potters around the world.
  10. 10GoffsSan Bernardino County5 min readGoffs, California is a Mojave ghost town on pre-1931 Route 66 where a restored 1914 schoolhouse and traces of Patton's WWII Desert Training Center remain.
  11. 11HelenaTrinity County4 min readHelena, California began as a rowdy 1851 Gold Rush camp called Bagdad. Its 1850s brick storefronts still stand on the North Fork of the Trinity River.
  12. 12HobokenSacramento County4 min readHoboken, California, a ghost town of canvas storefronts, served as Sacramento's business district during the 1853 flood and vanished within six weeks.
  13. 13Holy CitySanta Clara County5 min readHoly City, California was a 1920s roadside utopia run by a palm-reading cult leader tried for sedition. Two buildings remain in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
  14. 14Jaeger CityImperial County5 min readJaeger City, California, grew from a ferryman's stockade into the largest town at the Yuma Crossing before the Great Flood of 1862 swept it away overnight.
  15. 15KeelerInyo County4 min readKeeler, California is a fading silver-shipping town on dry Owens Lake, killed by collapsing silver prices, the LA Aqueduct, and toxic alkali dust storms.
  16. 16KelsoSan Bernardino County5 min readKelso, California was a Union Pacific helper-engine stop turned wartime mining boomtown. Visit its restored 1923 Spanish depot inside Mojave National Preserve.
  17. 17LibertySan Joaquin County4 min readLiberty, California began as an 1852 stagecoach stop halfway between San Jose and Sacramento. The railroad killed it by 1874. Only the cemetery remains.
  18. 18Llano del RioLos Angeles County4 min readIn 1914 a failed LA mayoral candidate built a socialist city in the Mojave. Inside Llano del Rio, California's largest secular utopia and its desert ruins.
  19. 19LudlowSan Bernardino County4 min readLudlow, California began in 1882 as a railroad water stop and became a junction where three railroads met, then Interstate 40 bypassed its Route 66 strip.
  20. 20ManchesterMonterey County4 min readManchester, California was a Big Sur gold camp of 350 people. After fire and failing ore emptied it, Cruikshank stayed on alone until he vanished in 1937.
  21. 21MentryvilleLos Angeles County4 min readMentryville, a California ghost town, grew around Pico No. 4, the first commercial oil well in the West. Visit the mansion, schoolhouse, and capped well today.
  22. 22NarkaInyo County5 min readNarka, California was a Southern Pacific siding built in 1909 to feed the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The post office closed in 1913. Nothing remains today.
  23. 23New IdriaSan Benito County4 min readNew Idria, California was the nation’s #2 quicksilver mine and birthplace of the state gem. Today it’s a historic landmark and federal Superfund site.
  24. 24Panamint CityInyo County4 min readPanamint City, California, was so violent that Wells Fargo refused its silver, so its owners cast it into 450-pound cannonballs. A flood ended it in 1876.
  25. 25PinacateRiverside County5 min readPinacate, California, a railroad town of about 400 people, vanished in 1885 when residents hauled their houses two miles north on wagons and founded Perris.
  26. 26Port ChicagoContra Costa County5 min readPort Chicago, California, survived a 1944 blast that killed 320, then was bulldozed in 1968 because the government judged the land too dangerous to live on.
  27. 27PurissimaSan Mateo County4 min readPurissima, California, a farming village south of Half Moon Bay, vanished with no fire, flood, or collapse to blame. Its restored cemetery is what remains.
  28. 28QuartzburgKern County5 min readQuartzburg, California banned alcohol in the 1870s, so saloonkeeper Adam Hamilton moved a mile downstream and helped found the town that became Kernville.
  29. 29Silver CityTulare County6 min readSilver City, California began in 1872 as a snowbound trail camp below Mineral King. Its silver rush failed, but the toll road kept its summer cabins alive.