Ghost Town Directory

Texas ghost towns

Towns
26
Counties
24
With photographs
15

The Texas ghost towns people look for most.

All 26 towns

All Texas ghost towns

  1. 01AlbertGillespie County3 min readIn 2007, Bobby Cave listed the entire town of Albert, Texas on eBay for $2.5 million. He had bought the Texas Hill Country ghost town three years earlier.
  2. 02Ben FicklinTom Green County3 min readBen Ficklin, Texas, a county seat, was destroyed on August 24, 1882, when four rivers flooded at once and sixty-five people drowned. San Angelo took its place.
  3. 03ElizabethtownDenton County4 min readElizabethtown, Texas, once called Bugtown, was a Peters Colony cattle-trail stop erased when the Texas and Pacific Railway bypassed it by two miles in 1881.
  4. 04Ellison SpringsEastland County4 min readEllison Springs, Texas is a ghost town in Eastland County where an 1864 Kiowa-Comanche fight killed a Texas militia lieutenant. Only the cemetery remains.
  5. 05GlenrioDeaf Smith County4 min readGlenrio, Texas is a ghost town split by the New Mexico line, where the Texaco, diner, and motel sign stand on Route 66 after Interstate 40 bypassed it in 1973.
  6. 06Hale CityHale County5 min readHale City, Texas was a paper town platted in 1891 on the Llano Estacado. When the railroad failed and drought struck, settlers hauled the buildings away.
  7. 07IndianolaCalhoun County4 min readIndianola, Texas was the second-busiest port in the state until two hurricanes, in 1875 and 1886, destroyed it. Most of the townsite now lies underwater.
  8. 08KicasterWilson County4 min readKicaster, Texas began as a post-Civil War farming settlement in Wilson County. Its school, post office, and churches are gone - only the cemetery remains.
  9. 09LangtryVal Verde County4 min readLangtry, Texas was a Southern Pacific railroad camp turned improbable courtroom for Judge Roy Bean, the self-styled Law West of the Pecos. Visit today.
  10. 10LuckenbachGillespie County4 min readLuckenbach, Texas is a Hill Country ghost town of three residents, three old buildings, and one unlikely $30,000 rescue that made it a country-music shrine.
  11. 11MesquiteBorden County4 min readMesquite, Texas is a Borden County ghost town above the Caprock, founded in 1905 and abandoned after its rural school closed. Visit its weathered schoolhouse.
  12. 12Mineral SpringsPanola County4 min readMineral Springs, Texas began as a Nadaco Caddo village, became a fort in 1833, then a logging flag stop. Today only woods remain off Highway 149 near Tatum.
  13. 13Old TascosaOldham County4 min readOld Tascosa, Texas was the Cowboy Capital of the Plains, haunt of Billy the Kid. A 1893 flood emptied it. Boot Hill and two buildings still remain today.
  14. 14OrlaReeves County4 min readOrla, Texas, began in 1890 as a railroad section house, grew into an oil supply center of about 250 people, and by 2000 had only two residents remaining.
  15. 15ParrisCollin County4 min readParris, Texas vanished after a Mexican-American War veteran's 1859 gristmill lost out to the railroad town of Melissa. Inside a forgotten Collin County hamlet.
  16. 16PittsvilleFort Bend County4 min readPittsville, Texas thrived on the prairie above the Brazos until an 1888 railroad bypass founded Fulshear and emptied the village. Only a cistern remains.
  17. 17Port SullivanMilam County4 min readPort Sullivan, Texas was the busiest port on the upper Brazos - 1,400 residents, a college, steamboats. Then railroads bypassed it. A Milam County ghost town.
  18. 18PrincetonNewton County4 min readPrinceton, Texas began in 1839 as a ferry landing on Possum Bluff above the Sabine River. When a sawmill town rose beside it in 1898, Princeton was abandoned.
  19. 19Santa RitaReagan County4 min readSanta Rita, Texas was a 1920s oil camp on University of Texas land where a blessed wildcat well cracked open the Permian Basin and funded two universities.
  20. 20Shafter LakeAndrews County4 min readShafter Lake, Texas, a ghost town in Andrews County, lost the 1910 county seat election to Andrews, and within two years most residents had moved away.
  21. 21SowersDallas County4 min readSowers, Texas, a cotton-gin village absorbed by Irving, was the site of a 1933 ambush where deputies shot Bonnie and Clyde in the knees before they escaped.
  22. 22Spanish FortMontague County4 min readIn 1759 a Taovaya town on the Red River beat a Spanish army that fled without its cannons. Settlers later misread the ruins and named Spanish Fort, Texas.
  23. 23SumpterTrinity County5 min readSumpter, Texas was Trinity County's first seat until an 1872 courthouse fire and a bypassing railroad emptied it. Today only a cemetery and marker remain.
  24. 24ThurberErath County4 min readThurber, Texas became the nation's only 100 percent closed-shop city in 1903, when 1,600 coal miners joined a union. Today a lone smokestack marks the site.
  25. 25ToyahReeves County4 min readToyah, Texas grew from W. T. Youngblood’s 1879 wagon store on a creek the Comanche called Toyah into a railroad town. By 2020, only 61 people remained.
  26. 26WatkinsTerrell County4 min readWatkins, Texas was a Sunset Route section station in Terrell County, erased in 1936 when a railroad straightening bypassed it through Thurston Canyon.