America ranks first in the world in terms of the number of abandoned cities. More recently, some of them shone with grandeur and were prestigious settlements. Gradually or overnight, they cease to exist, turning into lifeless objects, uninhabitable. They are called ghost towns.
Detroit
Detroit, Michigan - is not officially recognized as a ghost city, but in a number of sources the concept of abandoned US cities is associated with it. Detroit was founded by a French military leader in 1701 as a fort to hold back the British colonization of North America.
At the end of the 18th century, the city remained in the possession of the French colony, in 1796 it became part of the United States and became the capital of Michigan. Detroit grew and developed rapidly, occupying a special place during the Civil War.
Its "golden age" is considered to be the period from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. The largest automobile factories of the country were located here: Chrysler, General Motors, Ford. Their colossal profits attracted thousands of people to Detroit. It was called the automotive capital of the United States, but it was cars that destroyed the city in the mid-50s. The main task of the leaders of the automobile factories was to sell more of their products, they declared public transport not prestigious.
Soon, the middle class, having acquired their own cars, began to move to the suburbs of Detroit. Slowly but surely, the streets of the city began to empty, the interracial riots of 1967 exacerbated the situation and contributed to its decline, as a result of which entire neighborhoods were abandoned. Detroit today consists of a sparsely populated city center, deserted streets and a few black neighborhoods, where crime and drug trafficking flourish.
Gary
Gary, Indiana - Was one of several major centers of the iron and steel industry, founded in 1906, it was very promising, its industrial enterprises offered thousands of jobs. In the mid-60s, the population reached 173,000 people. But after the closure of a number of enterprises, a rapid outflow of population began, for several decades Gary was practically empty. Like Detroit, it is now a dying ghost town with crumbling buildings, broken roads, high levels of poverty and crime.
New Orleans, the most successful and beautiful city in Louisiana, became a ghost town for almost a year. It was flooded in 2005 by the powerful hurricane Katrina, and the authorities were forced to completely evacuate the population.
Centralia
Centralia, Pennsylvania is a small town founded in 1866. Until the mid-60s of the XX century, a little more than two thousand people lived and worked in it. In a quiet and calm American town there were schools, shops, churches. The main production of the city was a large coal mine located almost directly under the city. In 1962, the authorities were ordered to liquidate the city dump, and five volunteer firefighters set to work. They set fire to a mountain of rubbish, let the top burn out, and then extinguished it. However, the lower layers of the landfill continued to smolder, the fire seeped through natural holes into the abandoned mines and a fire began in them.
The fire near the city of Centralia was never extinguished. By the most conservative estimates, it will continue for more than two hundred years.
And although bad rumors spread almost immediately due to the escaping smoke from the ground, no one suspected the true extent of the fire for almost 15 years. In the late 70s, people began to complain of poor health and a persistent pungent smell of smoke, and in 1979, a gas station owner measured the temperature in an underground tank of gasoline. The temperature of gasoline was about 80 ° C, later an incident occurred in front of the city's investigative commission: a schoolboy almost fell into a huge earthen well that had formed under his feet. The city authorities decided to evacuate the population, and in 1984 Centralia was completely deserted and turned into a ghost town.
Gold mines
Fairplay, Saint Elmo, Belmont, Bodie, Mokelumn Hill, Othman - all these ghost towns are united by two factors: rapid heyday and sunset, as well as gold. All of them were founded in the middle of the 19th century, and then fell into disrepair and were abandoned. These cities were centers for gold mining, the main population of the city was made up of gold miners, owners of brothels, drinking establishments and prostitutes. After the mines were abandoned, cities fell into decay, and their names disappeared from the maps of the United States. Today these cities are real open-air museums with free admission: old bicycles stand on their streets, the first cars rot, and furniture and utensils of the century before last are still preserved in bars and houses.
