Two centuries ago, America was still being settled. Pioneers ventured west to build communities and forge new lives in lands that had been home to Native Americans for thousands of years. These settlers crossed vast plains, blistering deserts, and the rugged terrain of the Wild West, determined to expand the United States.
Some raised cattle, others farmed and built homesteads, and many followed the promise of wealth by mining for gold, silver, copper, and other metals. Settlements sprang up overnight when prospectors gathered, hoping to discover the Mother Lode. Other communities grew slowly, beginning with only a few families who established the foundation for trade and daily life.
A handful of these frontier towns remain today, functioning as both working communities and tourist attractions. Others were abandoned when resources ran out, leaving behind what we now call “ghost towns;” empty places where people once lived and died chasing dreams of opportunity and fortune.
Let’s visit four of these towns, each with a story most have never heard or have entirely forgotten.
Rhyolite, Nevada
Shorty Harris and E. L. Cross arrived in Rhyolite in 1904 as prospectors searching for valuable metals. They discovered an abundance of quartz “just full of free gold.” Soon, several mining camps developed, breathing life into the town named after a volcanic rock found throughout the area.
Rhyolite quickly became a boomtown, complete with its own stock exchange and board of trade. Hotels, schools, electric plants, and foundries rose alongside homes. Residents enjoyed social events, basket weaving, dancing, symphonies, baseball, and even opera shows. The town adopted an electric system, and steel magnate Charles Schwab bought a local mine for a sum between two and six million dollars. Progress seemed unstoppable, until the Financial Panic of 1907. By 1911, the mills had closed, and in 1916, the town’s lights were dimmed for good.
Today, Rhyolite stands as a ghost town, with only the remnants of the old bank and bottle house still partially standing.
St. Elmo, Colorado
The year was 1878.
Prospectors rushed to Colorado in search of gold and silver, setting up camp in what was then called Forest City, located in the Sawatch Range, 20 miles south of present-day Buena Vista. To avoid confusion with other “Forest Cities,” the town was renamed St. Elmo after a romantic 19th-century novel one of the founders was reading at the time.
At its peak, about 2,000 people called St. Elmo home, many of them single men who frequented dance halls, saloons, and brothels. In 1881, the arrival of the railroad cemented the settlement as the hub for supplies, stores, and hotels. The people of St. Elmo built a school, telegraph office, sawmills, and even distributed a weekly newspaper called the Mountaineer.
The mines prospered, cattle arrived, and St. Elmo’s reputation soared, until a devastating fire struck several businesses in 1890. Lacking the necessary resources to rebuild, the town’s fortune faded. The mines closed, the Alpine Tunnel was shut, and most residents boarded the “last train out,” except for the Stark family, who stayed for decades, running the general store and hotel, and renting cabins to tourists.
In the early 2000s, St. Elmo came to be recognized as “haunted” after some buildings were destroyed and others were donated to the Buena Vista Heritage Museum. Though a ghost town (perhaps quite literally), it remains well preserved in 2026.
Terlingua, Texas
Prospectors flocked to Terlingua, Texas, in the mid-1880s when news of quicksilver (mercury) spread. The settlement began as a Mexican village along Terlingua Creek and the Marfa and Mariposa mining camp. By 1902, Terlingua was home to about 300 laborers; by 1905, its population peaked at 1,000.
After the mines closed, the post office moved to the Chisos Mining Company camp, keeping the Terlingua name as the village continued to thrive. The town boasted a hotel, public telephone service, and a school. Segregation persisted for decades as quicksilver production declined, and after World War II, Terlingua became a ghost town. But that wasn’t the end of its story.
The 1960s and 70s saw the town’s revival, due in large part to the launch of a legendary chili cookoff, earning Terlingua the title “Chili Capital of the World.” Businesses reemerged, the population grew, and in 2026, roughly 170 people call Terlingua home.
Stehekin, Washington
The very name “Stehekin” comes from Salishan Native American culture, meaning “the way through,” an appropriate description, as it was once one of the few routes into the North Cascades. Tribes used Stehekin to cross the mountain pass, and in the 1880s, prospectors arrived to mine for gold. When the gold ran out, some settlers stayed, building a community that, though isolated, managed to farm and thrive.
There were no roads to Stehekin then, and there still aren’t today; access is only by river or foot, just as it was nearly 150 years ago. As of 2026, about 95 people live in Stehekin, off the power grid, with a historic one-room schoolhouse still in use.
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