ghost towns east of the Mississippi

History Tuesday – 3 Ghost Towns East of the Mississippi

It is History Tuesday – Slices of America, not for sale, simply of interest. Today we visit three ghost towns east of the Mississippi River.

Centralia, Pennsylvania

Centralia is a ghost town Columbia County, Pennsylvania. In its heyday the town’s population was 1,000 resident. Today population is three. Why the decline?  A coal mine fire has been burning beneath the town since 1962. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania seized all the real estate under eminent domain in 1992, but allowed seven remaining residents to stay in Centralia until their deaths. In 2002, the US Postal Serice discontinued  Centralia’s zip code.

Centralia, PA ghost town

 


Cahawba, Alabama

Cahawba,  once the state capital of Alabama  (1819-1826) and a thriving antebellum river town, became a ghost town by the early 1900s. After Alabama became a state in 1819, Cahawba was developed where the Cahaba and Alabama rivers meet. The city fathers modeled Cahawba after Philadelphia, and soon the city on the rivers became a hub of political and social life.  With many stores, several hotels, two ferries, a state bank, two newspapers, eight lawyers and several physicians, the town boomed before the Civil War.

 

 

 

The city was not built at an ideal location, however, and hardships were the name of the game. Because mosquitoes were a nuisance and the rivers often flooded, Alabama moved its state capital to Tuscaloosa in 1826. Still, the city continued to thrive with cotton plantations, steamboats, the railroad and a Confederate prison. Unfortunately, a major flood in 1865 destroyed the railroad terminal, leading to Cahawba’s decline. By 1870 only 300 residents remained, by 1900 Cahawba was abandoned, and by 1930 almost no structures survived.

 

Today, nature has reclaimed most of Cahawba. All that remains are picturesque ruins and a resident ghost. A large, white floating ball is sometimes seen by visitors, now called Peques’s Ghost after a soldier who was mortally wounded near there. For the more scientifically minded, it likely is a phenomenon known as Will-o’-the-Wisp, methane bubbles that rise over swamps.

 


 

Thurmond, West Virginia

Thurmond, West Virginia, declined from a bustling town to a ghost town with only five residents.

 

Located in the New River Gorge, when coal mining was at its peak, many thriving businesses and facilities for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad called Thurmond home. Two hotels, two banks, a post office train depot and shops lined the street. Today most of it is owned by the National Park Service.

 

 

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