Ghost Towns, USA

October 30 2009 by Casey Bower

ghost-town-wr.jpgIn the "spirit" of Halloween, I decided to do a little research into old Ghost Towns around the country. I naturally assumed that there would be plenty in the old, Wild West, but was surprised to see that there is a spattering of ghost towns all across the United States. There were so many to choose from with incredibly interesting stories, but I going to focus on three.

I'll start with Dudleytown, Connecticut; hidden among three smaller mountains in the Appalachian Mountains. Many people know of the town because of the haunted forest nearby. Dudleytown was never a thriving metropolis, far from it. At the height of its day in the early 1800's, the town supported 26 families. During the Civil War, the families that survived the small pox and yellow fever supplemented their farming by cutting and burning wood for charcoal to sell to surrounding communities. Dudleytown is reportedly not known as haunted, rather that the whole area is possessed by demonic forces having the most active paranormal activity in the world. Evidently a curse was brought from England over to the town by the founders and caused the residents to lose their minds and commit murder among other things. Today ghosts, poltergeists and dark creatures roam the area. It must be true because Dan Aykroyd from the movie "Ghostbusters" has called it the "scariest place on Earth".

Let's move on.....quickly. Closer to my home is Tombstone, Arizona. The Old West was pretty much ruled by lawlessness and most people met very violent deaths on a daily basis. Some would say that Tombstone is the most haunted Old West town in Arizona. Many famous and not so famous cowboys met an untimely and probably unseemly death and are said to still roam the streets. The site for the famous shootout at the OK Corral is a popular hangout for the ghosts of the Cowboys who died that day. They are said to be seen roaming the area around the corral with their guns drawn - I think they're hoping to get the jump on the Earps this time. If you need a little more "ghost fix" before you rush out of town, drop in at the Boot Hill Graveyard; a lot of people are just dying to get in there. (Sorry). There are reports of strange noises and lights emanating from the graveyard and if you really time it right, you might catch Billy Clanton rising from his grave to make the walk back into Tombstone.

I'll wrap up my whirlwind tour of ghost towns by taking you to Bannock, Montana. Nearby Grasshopper Creek is where gold was first discovered in 1862. The town of Bannock quickly grew to 3,000 people. Eventually, as the mines dried up, the town began to die out and all the buildings abandoned. One such building was Hotel Meade opened during the heyday of the gold rush. As the story goes, in 1916 the daughter of the hotel manager, Dorothy Dunn, drowned in Grasshopper Creek. She was said to have first appeared to her best friend who was with her when she drowned. Nowadays, she appears to only children wearing a blue dress and is dying to have a conversation with them. She can also be seen looking out of the 2nd story window of the old hotel, probably waiting for someone to check in.

Well, those are my 3 picks to share with you this Halloween. If you're passing through the area, be sure to stop by and see for yourself, if you dare.

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