103-576: Boat Encampment is a ghost town in the East Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia , Canada. The locality was at the tip of the Big Bend on the north shore of the Columbia River . The general vicinity, on the former Big Bend Highway , was by road about 151 kilometres (94 mi) northwest of Golden and 159 kilometres (99 mi) north of Revelstoke . The initial site
206-745: A Californio statesman and general. He sailed to the HBC post in Hawaii (then known as the Sandwich Islands ) in February 1842, and back to Sitka, where he took a Russian ship to Okhotsk in June. He went on horseback to Yakutsk , up the Lena River by horse-drawn boat, visited Lake Baikal , went by horse and later carriage to Saint Petersburg and reached London by ship at the end of October. This trip
309-420: A "bust" (e.g., catastrophic resource price collapse). A gold rush often brought intensive but short-lived economic activity to a remote village, only to leave a ghost town once the resource was depleted. Boomtowns can often decrease in size as quickly as they grew. Sometimes, all, or nearly all, of the population can desert the town, resulting in a ghost town. The dismantling of a boomtown can often occur on
412-599: A British commitment to recognize the independence of the islands. On 17 March 1843, King Louis Philippe I of France recognized Hawaiian independence at the urging of King Leopold I of Belgium , and on 1 April, Lord Aberdeen on behalf of Queen Victoria, assured the Hawaiian delegation that: "Her Majesty's Government was willing and had determined to recognize the independence of the Sandwich Islands under their present sovereign." By then, Simpson and his wife had
515-400: A brief courtship he married his first cousin, Frances Ramsay Simpson , in February 1830, and returned with his new wife to New York, Montreal, Michipicoten, Ontario , for the annual meeting, York Factory, and Red River. Here his wife gave birth to his first legitimate child, who soon died. In 1832, John Jacob Astor approached Gov. Simpson for talks to restrain liquor from the fur trade, and
618-642: A cabin for the winter. During his stay, Thompson built a canoe, naming the adjacent waterway the Canoe River. They split cedar into thin boards because the preferred birch bark lacked thickness. In the spring, they proceeded down the Columbia on their journey to the coast. Within a few years, Athabasca Pass became the accepted route for the fur brigades. In 1821, when the NWC merged into the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC),
721-602: A daughter by half-Cree washerwoman Betsy Sinclair. Betsy Sinclair was soon passed to an accountant whom he promoted. The daughter married an English botanist and died in a canoe accident on her honeymoon. James Keith Simpson (1823–1901) is poorly documented. Ann Simpson, born in Montreal in 1828, is known only from her baptismal record. Simpson fathered two sons, George Stewart (1827) and John Mackenzie (1829), with Margaret (Marguerite) Taylor. George married Isabella Yale (1840–1927), daughter of fur trader James Murray Yale , of
824-842: A ghost town because the economic activity that supported it (usually industrial or agricultural) has failed or ended for any reason (e.g. a host ore deposit exhausted by mining ). The town may have also 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 and radiation-related accidents and incidents . 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. Some ghost towns, especially those that preserve period-specific architecture, have become tourist attractions. Some examples are Bannack, Montana and Oatman, Arizona in
927-754: A large house on the Lachine Canal across from the depot from which the fur brigades started west. He also owned other estates such as a Manor in Coteau-du-Lac that he sold to the Comte de Beaujeu and Adélaïde de Gaspé , and another estate in Dorval where he received and entertained Prince Edward VII , of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . The Manor's estate included the Fur Trade Depot , and
1030-578: A limestone facade in the Classical Greek style , consisted of a row of nine luxurious houses, and was inhabited by Sir William Christopher Macdonald and Mcgill University 's Principal William Peterson . It was later demolished to make room for Samuel Bronfman 's pavilion, which was seen by Alcan CEO David Culver as an unforgivable act of vandalism. A street was named in his honor, called Simpson Street, next to Parc Percy-Walters, McGregor Street, and Maison John-Wilson-McConnell . The park
1133-514: A one-room schoolhouse. Another example of infrastructure remaining is the former town of Weston, Illinois , that voted itself out of existence and turned the land over for construction of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory . Many houses and even a few barns remain, used for housing visiting scientists and storing maintenance equipment, while roads that used to cross through the site have been blocked off at
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#17327913382381236-570: A part in the abandonment of settlements within Europe. Two examples are Pripyat and Chernobyl . After the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, Both cities were evacuated due to dangerous radiation levels within the area. As of today, Pripyat remains completely abandoned, and Chernobyl has around 500 remaining inhabitants. Another example is Todoque in Spain. During the 2021 Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption ,
1339-444: A planned basis. Mining companies nowadays will create a temporary company town to service a mine site, building all the accommodations, shops and services required, and then remove them once the resource has been extracted. Modular buildings can be used to facilitate the process. In some cases, multiple factors may remove the economic basis for a community; some former mining towns on U.S. Route 66 suffered both mine closures when
1442-452: A recent economic and holiday population surge. Another town, Sungai Lembing , Malaysia, was almost deserted due to closure of a tin mine in 1986 was revived in 2001 and has become a tourist destination since then. Foncebadón , a village in León , Spain, that was mostly abandoned and only inhabited by a mother and son, is slowly being revived owing to the ever-increasing stream of pilgrims on
1545-434: A result of a natural or human-made disaster or other causes; they restrict the term to settlements that were deserted because they were no longer economically viable. Some believe that any settlement with visible tangible remains should not be called a ghost town; others say, conversely, that a ghost town should contain the tangible remains of buildings. Whether or not the settlement must be completely deserted, or may contain
1648-422: A shift towards fly-in fly-out arrangements over building a company town , in order to avoid the development of ghost towns once a mining resource has been fully extracted. The Middle East has many ghost towns and ruins that were created when the shifting of politics or the fall of empires caused capital cities to be socially or economically unviable, such as Ctesiphon . The rise of real-estate speculation and
1751-420: A small population, is also a matter for debate. Generally, though, the term is used in a looser sense, encompassing any and all of these definitions. American author Lambert Florin defined a ghost town as "a shadowy semblance of a former self." Factors leading to the abandonment of towns include depleted natural resources, economic activity shifting elsewhere, railroads and roads bypassing or no longer accessing
1854-650: A string of ghost towns in areas such as the Solana Valley . Traditional agricultural practices such as sheep and goat rearing, on which the mountain village economy was based, were not taken over by the local youth, especially after the lifestyle changes that swept over rural Spain during the second half of the 20th century. Examples for ghost towns in Italy include the medieval village of Fabbriche di Careggine near Lago di Vagli , in province of Lucca , in Tuscany ,
1957-468: A town's life. In 1944, occupying German Waffen-SS troops murdered almost the entire population of the French village Oradour-sur-Glane . A new settlement was built nearby after the war, but the old town was left depopulated on the orders of President Charles de Gaulle , as a permanent memorial. In Germany, numerous smaller towns and villages in the former eastern territories were completely destroyed in
2060-481: Is now home to more than four million people. Wars and rebellions in some African countries have left many towns and villages deserted. Since 2003, when President François Bozizé came to power, thousands of citizens of the Central African Republic have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the escalating conflict between armed rebels and government troops. Villages accused of supporting
2163-596: Is now occupied by Sir George Simpson Tower . Both Simpson Street and Prince of Wales Terrace were in the Golden Square Mile , a neighbourhood of Downtown Montreal where nearly 3/4 of all the wealth in Canada was held by its inhabitants. During that era, most Canadian enterprises were either owned or controlled by approximately fifty men. As the most important man in the North American fur trade , he
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#17327913382382266-466: The Sperrgebiet ("forbidden zone"), effectively criminalizing new settlement. The small mining towns of this area, among them Pomona , Elizabeth Bay and Kolmanskop , were exempt from this ban, but the denial of new land claims soon rendered all of them ghost towns. The town of Dhanushkodi , India is a ghost town. It was destroyed during the 1964 Rameswaram cyclone and remains uninhabited in
2369-1019: The Bank of Montreal , as well as of the Bank of British North America , the Montreal and Lachine Railroad , the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad , the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad , the Grand Trunk Railway , and the Montreal Ocean Steamship Company . His business partners included Canada's richest man Sir Hugh Allan , Sir John Rose , Sir Alexander Mackenzie , President David Torrance , minister Luther H. Holton , Senator George Crawford , Senator Thomas Ryan , banker John Redpath , and bankers John Molson and William Molson . With Governor Drummond , Sir Antoine-Aimé Dorion , and John Young , they founded
2472-469: The Chernobyl disaster of 1986, dangerously high levels of nuclear contamination escaped into the surrounding area, and nearly 200 towns and villages in Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus were evacuated, including the cities of Pripyat and Chernobyl . The area was so contaminated that many of the evacuees were never permitted to return to their homes. Pripyat is the most famous of these abandoned towns; it
2575-743: The Continental Divide via the Howse Pass in September 1810, the hostile Piegan Blackfeet blocked his passage, forcing his party to divert northward to the uncharted Athabasca Pass . After a tortuous journey, the party reached the Boat Encampment site in January, 1811. Four discontented members deserted. The remainder continued upstream on the Columbia, but further discontent prompted a return to Boat Encampment, where they built
2678-699: The Interstate highway system replaced the railroads as the favored means of transportation. Ghost towns are common in mining or mill towns in all the western states, and many eastern and southern states as well. Residents are compelled to leave in search of more productive areas when the resources that had created an employment boom in these towns were eventually exhausted. Sometimes a ghost town consists of many abandoned buildings as in Bodie, California , or standing ruins as in Rhyolite, Nevada , while elsewhere only
2781-835: The King of the Fur-trade , the Emperor of the North , the Emperor of the Plains , the Emperor of Lachine , the Birch-bark Emperor , and the Little Emperor . Simpson also had a passion for Napoleon , and was living during his lifetime. It was one of the passions of his life, collecting writing relating to his hero, covering his walls with Napoleonic prints at Lachine Depot , Norway House and Fort Garry , and infecting
2884-604: The National Register of Historic Places . Starting in 2002, an attempt to declare an official ghost town in California stalled when the adherents of the town of Bodie and those of Calico , in Southern California , could not agree on the most deserving settlement for the recognition. A compromise was eventually reached—Bodie became the official state gold rush ghost town, while Calico was named
2987-717: The Oregon country , a sign of what would soon destroy his fur trade empire. Instead of taking the usual route, he went to what is now Banff, Alberta , made the first recorded passage of the pass named after him in August, and went down the Kootenay River to Fort Vancouver . Guessing that the 49th parallel border would be extended to the Pacific and considering the difficulties of the Columbia Bar , he proposed to move
3090-591: The Stanford Battle Area , were commandeered by the War Office for use as training grounds for British and US troops. Although this was intended to be a temporary measure, the residents were never allowed to return, and the villages have been used for military training ever since. Three miles or 5 km southeast of Imber is Copehill Down , a deserted village purpose-built for training in urban warfare . Disasters & natural disasters have played
3193-585: The Americans. He left in March 1825, and crossed the snow-covered Athabasca Pass. From Fort Assiniboine he went on horseback 80 miles (130 km) south to Fort Edmonton on the North Saskatchewan River . He had ordered this new road laid out on his outward voyage. It was a major saving over the old Methye Portage route. He went 500 miles (800 km) on horseback from Fort Carlton to
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3296-515: The HBC headquarters to what is now Victoria, British Columbia , a suggestion that earned him the enmity of John McLoughlin , who had done much to develop the Columbia district. Simpson took the Beaver north along the Pacific coast to the Russian post at Sitka , and then another boat as far south as Santa Barbara , stopping at the HBC post of Yerba Buena . At some point he met Mariano Vallejo ,
3399-707: The North , was of the view that Simpson should be counted among Canada’s founding fathers for his role as Governor-in-chief of Rupert's Land , and its later merger in 1867 to form the Dominion of Canada . Rupert's Land territory was Canada's largest land acquisition to form modern Canada , and included land in Quebec , Ontario , Manitoba , Saskatchewan , Alberta , the Northwest Territories , Nunavut , Montana , Minnesota , and North and South Dakota . In newspapers and books, he has been referred as
3502-673: The Red River settlements, Rock Depot for the annual meeting, the posts on James Bay to inspect his new domain, and back to Montreal. In May 1828, he started his second trip to the Pacific along with his dog, mistress and personal piper, going first to York Factory and then using the Peace River route. This 5,000-mile (8,000 km) trip remains the longest North American canoe journey ever made in one season. He returned via Athabasca Pass to Moose Factory and Montreal and immediately went south to New York and took ship to Liverpool. After
3605-519: The Red River settlements, and then by boat to York Factory. During this trip his servant, Tom Taylor, became separated on a hunting trip. After searching for half a day, Simpson left Taylor to his fate. Taylor reached the Swan River post after 14 days in the wilderness with no proper equipment. In 1825, he returned to Britain and learned that William Williams had retired, thereby adding the eastern area to his domain. Returning to Montreal , he went to
3708-621: The Southern Department south of Hudson Bay. In December 1821, the HBC monopoly was extended to the Pacific coast. After the meeting he returned downstream to take up his duties at York Factory. In December 1821, he set out on snowshoes for Cumberland House and then the Red River Colony . By July 1822, he was back at York Factory for the second meeting of the Northern Council, the first that he chaired. After
3811-670: The Transmundane Telegraph Company, but the venture later failed. In the spring of 1845, he went to Washington, D.C. , to discuss the Oregon boundary with the Americans, which he had already done with Sir Robert Peel . In 1846, the Oregon Treaty established the current border. His wife contracted tuberculosis in 1846 and died in 1853. In 1854, he was able to travel by rail to Chicago before he boarded his voyageur canoe at Sault Ste. Marie . In 1855, he
3914-847: The U.S. when NASA acquired land to construct the John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC), a rocket testing facility in Hancock County, Mississippi (on the Mississippi side of the Pearl River , which is the Mississippi – Louisiana state line). This required NASA to acquire a large (approximately 34-square-mile or 88-square-kilometre) buffer zone because of the loud noise and potential dangers associated with testing such rockets. Five thinly populated rural Mississippi communities (Gainesville, Logtown, Napoleon, Santa Rosa, and Westonia), plus
4017-608: The United States, and Canada, where housing is often used as an investment rather than for habitation. Railroads and roads bypassing or no longer reaching a town can also create a ghost town. This was the case in many of the ghost towns along Ontario's historic Opeongo Line , and along U.S. Route 66 after motorists bypassed the latter on the faster moving highways I-44 and I-40 . Some ghost towns were founded along railways where steam trains would stop at periodic intervals for repairs or to take on water. Amboy, California ,
4120-508: The United States, via Mexico, on 8 July. The Hawaiian delegation, while in the United States, secured the assurance of President John Tyler of its recognition of Hawaiian independence on 19 December, and then proceeded to meet Simpson in Europe and secure formal recognition by Great Britain and France. He was instrumental in arranging conferences between Hawaiian representatives and the British Foreign Office which resulted in
4223-731: The United States; Barkerville, British Columbia in Canada; Craco and Pompeii in Italy; Aghdam in Azerbaijan; Kolmanskop in Namibia; Pripyat and Chernobyl in Ukraine; Dhanushkodi in India; Fordlândia in Brazil and Villa Epecuén in Argentina. T. Lindsey Baker, author of Ghost Towns of Texas , defines a ghost town as "a town for which the reason for being no longer exists." Some writers discount settlements that were abandoned as
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4326-406: The aftermath. Many abandoned towns and settlements in the former Soviet Union were established near Gulag labour camps to supply necessary services. Since most of these camps were abandoned in the 1950s, the towns were abandoned as well. One such town is located near the former Gulag camp called Butugychag (also called Lower Butugychag). Other towns were deserted due to deindustrialisation and
4429-514: The country, were wiped out due to the Great Famine in the latter half of the 19th century, and the years of economic decline that followed. Catastrophic environmental damage caused by long-term contamination can also create a ghost town. Some notable examples are Times Beach, Missouri , whose residents were exposed to a high level of dioxins , and Wittenoom, Western Australia , which was once Australia's largest source of blue asbestos , but
4532-460: The dangerous Dalles des Morts rapids. The ferry installed in 1900 no longer operated a few years later. A subsidized ferry was established in 1910 to connect the Big Bend with Tête Jaune via the Canoe River shore. The ferry, which could carry horses and wagons, existed at least until 1916. The highway bridge was erected by 1936. Although completed in late 1939, the official opening ceremony for
4635-407: The definite article) appears to have been adopted in the 1830s. By 1900, the place was also known as Big Bend, but this term also had a wider application. The pass was also called Rocky Mountain Portage, Columbia Pass, or Boat Encampment Pass. 1825: Governor George Simpson . 1827, 1828: Francis Ermatinger. 1828: David Douglas . 1838: Fathers Blanchet and Demers held the first mass on
4738-429: The deserted mountain village Craco located in Basilicata , which has served as a filming location, and the ghost village Roveraia, in the municipality of Loro Ciuffenna , in province of Arezzo , situated near Pratovalle . During World War II it was an important partisan base and it was definitively abandoned in the 1980s, when the last family who lived here, left the village. . Two projects have been proposed for
4841-619: The development of ghost towns. Tyneham , in Dorset , was requisitioned for military exercises during the Second World War , and remains unpopulated, being littered with unexploded munitions from regular shelling. A few ghost towns have managed to get a second life, and this happens through a variety of reasons. One of these reasons is heritage tourism generating a new economy able to support residents. For example, Walhalla, Victoria , Australia, became almost deserted after its gold mine ceased operation in 1914, but owing to its accessibility and proximity to other attractive locations, it has had
4944-403: The east side of Athabasca Pass . He crossed the pass on horseback to Boat Encampment and then down the Columbia River , reaching its mouth on November 8 at Fort George , previously named Fort Astoria . This 80-day journey was 20 days faster than the previous record. He moved the headquarters of the Columbia District to Fort Vancouver , guessing that the south side of the river might fall to
5047-418: The eastern terminus moved westward, having a final location in the vicinity of Henry House . Cabins, stables and a boathouse existed at Boat Encampment. Each eastbound party would exchange boats for horses and snowshoes with each westbound one. However, the former would wait up to a month for the latter to arrive. On one occasion, having waited 39 days, the eastbound were about to return down the river, when word
5150-478: The economic crises of the early 1990s attributed to post-Soviet conflicts – one example being Tkvarcheli in Georgia, a coal mining town that suffered a drastic population decline as a result of the War in Abkhazia in the early 1990s. Although in 2010s Chinese ghost cities became a frequent feature of discourse regarding China's economy and urbanization , under-occupied cities filled up. Writing in 2023, academic and former UK diplomat Kerry Brown described
5253-410: The edges of the property, with gatehouses or barricades to prevent unsupervised access. Construction of dams has produced ghost towns that have been left underwater. Examples include: Some towns become deserted when their populations were massacred , deported, or expelled. Examples include Kayaköy, an ancient Greek city abandoned in 1923 as result of population exchange between Greece and Turkey and
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#17327913382385356-431: The entire population to flee. Upon seizing the city, Armenian forces destroyed much of the town to discourage Azerbaijanis from returning. More damage occurred in the following decades when locals looted the abandoned town for building materials. It is currently almost entirely ruined and uninhabited. Natural and human-made disasters can create ghost towns. For example, after being flooded more than 30 times since their town
5459-497: The factors and fur traders of the Hudson's Bay Company with them. Simpson sired at least eleven children by at least seven women, only one of whom was his wife. While in London he produced two daughters by two unknown women. When he left for Canada they were sent to Scotland to be cared for by his relatives. The eldest, Mary Louisa Simpson, was given a £500 dowry on her marriage and moved to Canada. She has at least 111 descendants. The other daughter died early. In 1817, he produced
5562-399: The foundations of former buildings remain as in Graysonia, Arkansas . Old mining camps that have lost most of their population at some stage of their history such as Aspen , Deadwood , Oatman , Tombstone and Virginia City are sometimes referred to as ghost towns although they are presently active towns and cities. Many U.S. ghost towns, such as South Pass City in Wyoming are listed on
5665-540: The highway was held at the Boat Encampment bridge in June 1940. By 1973, when the dam submerged the locality, the highway had fallen into general disuse. During 1970–71, an over-height loaded logging truck damaged the bridge bracing. Once repaired, warning portals were installed on the approaches. Ghost town A ghost town , deserted city , extinct town , or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes
5768-457: The idea of Chinese ghost cities as a popular bandwagon which was shown to be a myth. The town of Namie , along with several other towns in Fukushima Prefecture , Japan, was temporarily evacuated as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami . Following ongoing decontamination works, several portions of Namie have been fully reopened to residents, allowing reconstruction and renovation of
5871-415: The last two years of the war. These territories later became part of Poland and the Soviet Union , and many of the smaller settlements were never rebuilt or repopulated, for example Kłomino ( Westfalenhof ), Pstrąże ( Pstransse ), and Janowa Góra ( Johannesberg ). Some villages in England were also abandoned during the war, but for different reasons. Imber , on Salisbury Plain , and several villages in
5974-457: The latter adopted the route for the once or twice-annual HBC "Express" linking the west with Hudson Bay . By river, the distance to Fort Vancouver was 1,477 kilometres (918 mi). The Athabasca trail northeastward from Boat Encampment comprised Wood River , Jeffrey Creek, Pacific Creek, Committee's Punch Bowl , Athabasca Pass , Whirlpool River , Athabasca River , Brûlé Lake , and terminated at Jasper House (first location). Gradually,
6077-431: The locality was severely affected. Hundreds of buildings which also includes Church of Saint Pius X, the health center, the headquarters of the neighborhood association, the School of Early Childhood Education, and Los Campitos Elementary School and the Todoque Elementary and the Infant Education School, and by October 10, new lava flows destroyed the buildings that were still standing, leaving the town practically erased from
6180-400: The mainland of what would become BC. 1845: Lieutenant Henry Warre made sketches during his travels. 1846, 1847: Paul Kane also made sketches. Paintings later developed from his drawings exaggerated the landscape. At this point, the breadth of the Columbia was 55 metres (60 yd) and the adjacent Canoe mouth was 37 metres (40 yd). About 113 kilometres (70 mi) downstream were
6283-457: The map. An example in the UK of a ghost village which was abandoned before it was ever occupied is at Polphail , Argyll and Bute . The planned development of an oil rig construction facility nearby never materialised, and a village built to house the workers and their families became deserted the moment the building contractors finished their work. War activities, displacements and complete destruction of cities as result of intense fighting were
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#17327913382386386-456: The meeting he went by water to Lac Île-à-la-Crosse and then by dog sled to Fort Chipewyan and Fort Resolution on the Tıdeè Lake . He then went south to Fort Dunvegan on the Peace River and then Fort Edmonton and after the thaw, back to York Factory. In August 1824, he left York Factory for the Pacific, taking the unorthodox Nelson – Burntwood River route, and ascended the Churchill River and Athabasca Rivers to Jasper House at
6489-471: The most notable are Anyox , Kitsault , and Ocean Falls . Some ghost towns have revived their economies and populations due to historical and eco-tourism, such as Barkerville ; once the largest town north of Kamloops , it is now a year-round provincial museum. In Quebec, Val-Jalbert is a well-known tourist ghost town; founded in 1901 around a mechanical pulp mill that became obsolete when paper mills began to break down wood fibre by chemical means, it
6592-410: The nation's second-largest city with 1 million people, was a village of only a few thousand people before colonization. Alexandria , the second-largest city of Egypt, was a flourishing city in the Ancient era, but declined during the Middle Ages. It underwent a dramatic revival during the 19th century; from a population of 5,000 in 1806, it grew into a city of more than 200,000 inhabitants by 1882, and
6695-428: The non-hereditary title of Sir on 25 January 1841. He left London in March 1841, and went by canoe to Fort Garry (now the site of Winnipeg ). On this part of the trip he was accompanied by James Alexander, 3rd Earl of Caledon , who left to hunt on the prairie and later published a journal. Travelling on horseback to Fort Edmonton , Simpson caught up with James Sinclair 's wagon train of over 100 settlers heading for
6798-464: The northern portion of a sixth ( Pearlington ), along with 700 families in residence, had to be completely relocated away from the facility. Sometimes the town might cease to officially exist, but the physical infrastructure remains. For example, the five Mississippi communities that had to be abandoned to build SSC still have remnants of those communities within the facility itself. These include city streets, now overgrown with forest flora and fauna, and
6901-535: The official state silver rush ghost town. George Simpson (HBC administrator) Sir George Simpson ( c. 1792 – 7 September 1860) was a Scottish explorer and colonial governor of the Hudson's Bay Company during the period of its greatest power. From 1820 to 1860, he was in practice, if not in law, the British viceroy for the whole of Rupert's Land , an enormous territory of 3.9 millions square kilometres corresponding to nearly forty per cent of modern-day Canada . His efficient administration of
7004-454: The original French village at Oradour-sur-Glane which was destroyed on 10 June 1944 when 642 of its 663 inhabitants were killed by a German Waffen-SS company. A new village was built after the war on a nearby site, and the ruins of the original have been maintained as a memorial. Another example is Aghdam , a city in Azerbaijan . Armenian forces occupied Aghdam in July 1993 during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War . The heavy fighting forced
7107-458: The prominent Beaver Club . He went by ship to New York, by boat and cart to Montreal and left by the usual route for York Factory on Hudson Bay . He met Williams at Rock Depot on the Hayes River . Since Williams had not been arrested he was William's subordinate and was sent west to Fort Wedderburn on Lake Athabaska . There he spent the winter learning about, and reorganizing, the fur trade. On his return journey in 1821, he learned that
7210-463: The reason for abandonment can arise from a town's intended economic function shifting to another, nearby place. This happened to Collingwood, Queensland , in Outback Australia when nearby Winton outperformed Collingwood as a regional centre for the livestock-raising industry. The railway reached Winton in 1899, linking it with the rest of Queensland , and Collingwood was a ghost town by the following year. More broadly across Australia, there has been
7313-467: The reason for their complete abandonment. Examples are Marinka and Soledar in Donbas in Ukraine . Canada has several ghost towns in parts of British Columbia , Alberta , Ontario , Saskatchewan , Newfoundland and Labrador , and Quebec . Some were logging towns or dual mining and logging sites, often developed at the behest of the company . In Alberta and Saskatchewan, most ghost towns were once farming communities that have since died off due to
7416-562: The rebels, such as Beogombo Deux near Paoua , are ransacked by government soldiers. Those who are not killed have no choice but to escape to refugee camps. The instability in the region also leaves organized and well-equipped bandits free to terrorize the populace, often leaving villages abandoned in their wake. Elsewhere in Africa, the town of Lukangol was burnt to the ground during tribal clashes in South Sudan . Before its destruction,
7519-823: The recovery of the village: in 2011 the proposal of Movimento Libero Perseo "Roveraia eco - lab", based on sustainability, and in 2019 there was a proposal aiming to recover the village with a mix of functions called "Ecomuseum of Pratomagno". In the United Kingdom, thousands of villages were abandoned during the Middle Ages, as a result of Black Death , revolts, and enclosure , the process by which vast amounts of farmland became privately owned. Since there are rarely any visible remains of these settlements, they are not generally considered ghost towns; instead, they are referred to in archaeological circles as deserted medieval villages . Sometimes, wars and genocide end
7622-551: The removal of the railway through the town or the bypass of a highway. The ghost towns in British Columbia were predominantly mining towns and prospecting camps as well as canneries and, in one or two cases, large smelter and pulp mill towns. British Columbia has more ghost towns than any other jurisdiction on the North American continent, with more than 1,500 abandoned or semi-abandoned towns and localities. Among
7725-502: The resources were depleted and loss of highway traffic as US 66 was diverted from places like Oatman, Arizona , onto a more direct path. Mine and pulp mill closures have led to many ghost towns in British Columbia, Canada, including several relatively recent ones: Ocean Falls , which closed in 1973 after the pulp mill was decommissioned; Kitsault , whose molybdenum mine shut down after only 18 months in 1982; and Cassiar , whose asbestos mine operated from 1952 to 1992. In other cases,
7828-458: The resulting possibility of real-estate bubbles (sometimes due to outright overbuilding by land developers) may also trigger the appearance of certain elements of a ghost town, as real-estate prices initially rise (whereupon affordable housing becomes less available) and then later fall for a variety of reasons that are often tied to economic cycles and/or marketing hubris. This has been observed to occur in various countries, including Spain, China,
7931-649: The road to Santiago de Compostela . Some ghost towns (e.g. Riace , Muñotello ) are being repopulated by respectively refugees and homeless people . In Riace, this was accomplished by a scheme funded by the Italian government which offers the housing to refugees and in Muñotello it was accomplished through an NGO ( Madrina Foundation ). In Algeria, many cities became hamlets after the end of Late Antiquity . They were revived with shifts in population during and after French colonization of Algeria . Oran , currently
8034-519: The site for the 1953 cairn and plaque. A fishing lodge opened in the vicinity. In 1943, the area was designated a National Historic Site of Canada . In 1973, the historic marker was relocated when the enlarged Kinbasket Lake formed the Mica Dam reservoir. In 2000, a memorial plaque was placed at a visitor site on the south shore of the Columbia. When David Thompson of the fur trading North West Company (NWC) attempted his usual westward crossing of
8137-584: The summer of 1838, he went to Saint Petersburg to negotiate with Baron Ferdinand von Wrangel of the Russian-American Company . The Russians recognized the HBC posts and the HBC agreed to supply the Russian posts. He then went to Montreal, Red River, Moose Factory, the Saint Lawrence posts, and down the Hudson to New York, where he took ship to England. Simpson received the title of Knight Bachelor from Queen Victoria , giving him
8240-580: The town had a population of 20,000. The Libyan town of Tawergha had a population of around 25,000 before it was abandoned during the 2011 civil war , and it has remained empty since. Many of the ghost towns in mineral-rich Africa are former mining towns. Shortly after the start of the 1908 diamond rush in German South-West Africa , now known as Namibia , the German Imperial government claimed sole mining rights by creating
8343-558: The town's buildings to be undertaken and resettlement of the area to take place. Urbanization – the migration of a country's rural population into the cities – has left many European towns and villages deserted. An increasing number of settlements in Bulgaria are becoming ghost towns for this reason; at the time of the 2011 census, the country had 181 uninhabited settlements. In Hungary, dozens of villages are also threatened with abandonment. The first village officially declared as "dead"
8446-406: The town, human intervention, disasters, massacres, wars, the shifting of politics or fall of empires, and volcanic eruptions. A town can also be abandoned when it is part of an exclusion zone due to natural or human-made causes . Ghost towns may result when the single activity or resource that created a boomtown (e.g., nearby mine, mill or resort) is depleted or the resource economy undergoes
8549-488: The two companies had merged. This put an end to a ruinous and sometimes violent competition and converted the HBC monopoly into an informal government for western Canada. He escorted that year's furs to Rock Depot and returned upriver to Norway House for the first meeting of the merged companies. There he learned that he had been made governor of the Northern—that is, western—Department and Williams had been made his equal in
8652-806: The two met in New York, but a binding agreement never ensued. In May 1833, he suffered a mild stroke. He and his wife returned to Scotland, where she remained for the next five years and gave birth to a baby girl. In the spring of 1834, he returned to Canada and attended the Southern Council at Moose Factory in May and the Northern Council at York Factory in June, inspected posts on the Saint Lawrence , and arrived back in England in October 1835. In
8755-430: The west was a precondition for the confederation of western and eastern Canada , which later created the Dominion of Canada . He was noted for his grasp of administrative detail and his physical stamina in traveling through the wilderness. Excepting voyageurs and their Siberian equivalents , few men have spent as much time travelling in the wilderness. Simpson was also the first person known to have "circumnavigated"
8858-546: The world by land, and became the most powerful man of the North American fur trade during his lifetime. Born at Dingwall , Ross-Shire , Scotland, as the illegitimate son of George Simpson, Writer to the Signet , he was raised by two aunts and his paternal grandmother, Isobel Simpson (1731–1821), daughter of George Mackenzie, 2nd Laird of Gruinard —grandson of George Mackenzie, 2nd Earl of Seaforth —and Elizabeth, daughter of Duncan Forbes, Lord Culloden . Simpson's father
8961-460: Was Gyűrűfű [ hu ] in the late 1970s, but later it was repopulated as an eco-village . Some other depopulated villages were successfully saved as small rural resorts, such as Kán , Tornakápolna , Szanticska , Gorica , and Révfalu . In Spain, large zones of the mountainous Iberian System and the Pyrenees have undergone heavy depopulation since the early 20th century, leaving
9064-433: Was a first cousin of Sir Alexander Mackenzie 's father-in-law. In 1808, he was sent to London to work in the sugar brokerage business run by his uncle, Geddes Mackenzie Simpson (1775–1848). When his uncle's firm merged with that of Andrew Colvile-Wedderburn in 1812, Simpson came into contact with the Hudson's Bay Company , as Colvile was a company director and brother-in-law of Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk . This
9167-487: Was abandoned due to an uncontainable mine fire , which began in 1962 and still rages to this day; eventually the fire reached an abandoned mine underneath the nearby town of Byrnesville , which caused that mine to catch on fire too and forced the evacuation of that town as well. Ghost towns may also occasionally come into being due to an anticipated natural disaster – for example, the Canadian town of Lemieux, Ontario ,
9270-595: Was abandoned in 1991 after soil testing revealed that the community was built on an unstable bed of Leda clay . Two years after the last building in Lemieux was demolished, a landslide swept part of the former town-site into the South Nation River . Two decades earlier, the Canadian town of Saint-Jean-Vianney , Québec, also constructed on a Leda clay base, had been abandoned after a landslide on 4 May 1971, which swept away 41 homes, killing 31 people. Following
9373-527: Was abandoned when the mill closed in 1927 and re-opened as a park in 1960. Many ghost towns or abandoned communities exist in the American Great Plains , the rural areas of which have lost a third of their population since 1920. Thousands of communities in the northern plains states of Montana , Nebraska , North Dakota , and South Dakota became railroad ghost towns when a rail line failed to materialize. Hundreds of towns were abandoned as
9476-654: Was at the time of conflict between the HBC and the North West Company . Governor William Williams, who had been sent out in 1818, had arrested or captured several North West Company men. The Nor'Westers replied with a Quebec warrant for Williams' arrest. The London governors were unhappy with Williams' clumsy management and both companies were under British pressure to settle their differences. The locum tenens in Simpson's title meant that if Williams had been arrested, Simpson would take his place. In 1820, he joined
9579-595: Was built for the workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and had a population of almost 50,000 at the time of the disaster. Significant fatality rates from epidemics have produced ghost towns. Some places in eastern Arkansas were abandoned after more than 7,000 Arkansans died during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919. Several communities in Ireland, particularly in the west of
9682-400: Was documented in his book, An overland journey round the world . During his visit to Hawaii, he met with King Kamehameha III and his advisers. Simpson, along with Timoteo Haʻalilio and William Richards were commissioned as joint Ministers Plenipotentiary on 8 April 1842. Simpson, shortly thereafter, left for England, via Alaska and Siberia , while Haʻalilio and Richards departed for
9785-579: Was founded in 1845, residents of Pattonsburg, Missouri , decided to relocate after two floods in 1993. With government help, the whole town was rebuilt 3 miles or 5 km away. Craco , a medieval village in the Italian region of Basilicata , was evacuated after a landslide in 1963. Nowadays it is a filming location for many movies, including The Passion of The Christ by Mel Gibson , Christ Stopped at Eboli by Francesco Rosi , The Nativity Story by Catherine Hardwicke and Quantum of Solace by Marc Forster . In 1984, Centralia, Pennsylvania ,
9888-650: Was in Washington, D.C., and discussed Oregon affairs, and in 1857, defended the HBC monopoly in London. In May 1860, he went by rail to Saint Paul, Minnesota ; decided that his health would not bear the trip to Red River; and returned to Lachine. In August 1860, he entertained the Prince of Wales at Lachine, who came for the inauguration of Victoria Bridge , in honour of his mother Queen Victoria . Simpson built Prince of Wales Terrace in his honour. The building, made of
9991-497: Was later sold to Senator Lawrence Alexander Wilson and Lt. Col. W. A. Grant of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery . Lord Donald Smith of Knebworth House , Co-Premier of Canada Sir Francis Hincks , and other leading members of Montreal's society would attend Simpson's banquets. He began investing in banks, railroads, ships, mines and canals. He became a board director and shareholder of Canada’s first bank,
10094-586: Was on a long woody point, but the appearance on maps has ranged from the west shore of the Canoe River to the former highway bridge about 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) southeast of the former mouth of the Wood River . The consensus places the initial location between the mouths of the Canoe and Wood rivers. After the highway was opened, the bridge location assumed the name and was chosen for viewing purposes as
10197-652: Was one of them. Shortly after the Princes of Wales's visit, Governor Simpson suffered a massive stroke and died six days later in Lachine. At his death in 1860, he left an estate worth over £100,000, which in relation to GDP, amounted to half a billion dollars in 2023 Canadian money. The amount is also very similar to Harlaxton Manor 's building cost. Simpson also gave money to the general endowment of McGill University in 1856, along with Peter McGill and Peter Redpath , among others. James Raffan, author of Emperor of
10300-688: Was part of one such series of villages along the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad across the Mojave Desert . River re-routing is another factor, one example being the towns along the Aral Sea . Ghost towns may be created when land is expropriated by a government, and residents are required to relocate. One example is the village of Tyneham in Dorset, England, acquired during World War II to build an artillery range. A similar situation occurred in
10403-407: Was previously occupied by one of his houses, and was part of his 15 acre estate on Mount Royal . It was then occupied by Rosemount House, which was built on the land of Governor Simpson and was the home of Sir John Rose, 1st Baronet , and later William Watson Ogilvie . Galt House was also built on Simpson Street by Canadian Founding Father Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt . The entrance of Simpson Street
10506-696: Was received of the westbound imminent arrival. After 1849, the route and site were largely abandoned when the HBC switched to the Tête Jaune Cache route via the Fraser River . From the late 1890s to early 1900s, the place was known as a mining camp 180 kilometres (110 mi) north of Revelstoke. Earlier names were Canoe camp, Portage Point, Rocky Mountain Portage, and Mountain House. The rename to Boat Encampment (often not capitalised and/or with
10609-561: Was shut down in 1966 due to health concerns. Treece and Picher , twin communities straddling the Kansas – Oklahoma border, were once one of the United States' largest sources of zinc and lead , but over a century of unregulated disposal of mine tailings led to groundwater contamination and lead poisoning in the town's children, eventually resulting in a mandatory Environmental Protection Agency buyout and evacuation. Contamination due to ammunition caused by military use may also lead to
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