#Abandoned towns manual#
Stonewall Jackson Manual Training and Industrial School is one of the most somber abandoned places in NC on this list. Stonewall Jackson Manual Training and Industrial School, Concord NC While here, enjoy one of WNC’s prettiest lakes, Fontana Lake.įun fact: The United Kingdom also has a “road to nowhere” – the M25. This is one of the most bittersweet abandoned places in NC since the Road To Nowhere is a sore spot for locals yet also provides a beautiful recreational strip for hiking, cruising, and biking.Īs a small mountain town, Bryson City promises the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, multiple hopping breweries, and delicious local restaurants – an easy 1+-hour Asheville day trip. Lakeview Drive also has multiple pullovers, including a stunning view of Fontana Lake. So instead of being one of the many NC ghost towns, Smoky Mountain National Park has a “Road to Nowhere” as the locals call it, ending at a dark, echoing tunnel instead.ĭrive six miles to the tunnel, and park in a designated dirt lot to explore the area. Unfortunately, an environmental issue stopped construction of the new “Lakeview Drive” just six miles into the park, and because of the expense, it hasn’t been completed since. The residents were promised that the road would be replaced (and – most importantly – would provide access to the cemeteries that the residents had to leave behind). Obviously, this didn’t go down too well, especially when it turned out the government was also planning on removing the Old Highway 288 which connected those communities to the outside world. In order to do this, many people had to relocate, leaving behind the villages they’d lived in for generations. The Road to Nowhere, Bryson City NC Head down Bryson City’s Lakeview Drive, a bittersweet and scenic two-lane road, ending at a tunnel with hiking trails.ĭecades before the Talking Heads sang their famous song, Swain County NC was working hard in the 1940s on creating the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Fontana Lake and dam. If you enjoy eerie places, read more about Asheville’s haunted houses and landmarks.īy Jeremy Paterson 1. Take a hike in the forest, catch the glow of a ghost on camera, and walk down a yellow brick road.ĭon’t forget to share the ghost towns in NC that you’ve visited or want to know more about. Some of these abandoned North Carolina places have been brought back to life through tourism. However, they provide invaluable lessons so that history may never repeat itself.īelow, explore the most prominent abandoned places and ghost towns in North Carolina – and know that a few are in the works to be restored or repurposed (potentially). Others have a much darker, tragic, and somber history with limited to no access. Today, some of the NC ghost towns are popular visitor attractions, including Henry River Mill Village – think The Hunger Games’ District 12 – and Outer Bank’s Portsmouth Village. Like much of the South, you’ll find quite a few abandoned places in NC, including towns, theme parks, construction areas, and even a plane wreckage site. Many are on private property.For dark tourists and history lovers, explore the creepiest abandoned places in North Carolina to learn more about and visit. More than a score of these towns have enough life in spite of the ravages of vandals and weather to be interesting to the special breed of human whose eyes light up at the mention of them. Quite a few towns have a number of inhabitants. If you look, you can read the names of legendary people written in the dust: Johnny Ringo, Russian, Bill, Toppy Johnson, Roy Bean, Butch Cassidy, Madame Varnish, Black jack Ketchum, Mangas Coloradas, Billy the Kid, James Cooney. They molder into oblivion, their shells of buildings like specters against the sky, these towns that witnessed some of America’s most romantic and rapacious history.Īnd if you listen, you can hear the names of fabled mines whispered on the wind: Bridal Chamber, Confidence, Little Hell, Calamity Jane, Hardscrabble, Mystic Lode, North Homestake, Little Fanny, Spanish Bar. Literally hundreds of towns not only died, they vanished.īy some estimates, New Mexico is home to more than 400 ghost towns - most are nothing more than a few foundations and some occasional mining equipment.īut traces of many linger on, haunting ties to days that used to be. A few were farming communities that flourished for a time and mysteriously fell silent. Most were mining towns, where men lusted after the earth’s riches - gold, silver, turquoise, copper, lead and coal. But in the late 1800s, each had a moment of glory that blazed and died like a sudden flame."
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