Over the past several years more and more people are discovering the pleasure and challenges of "collecting" ghost towns. There are ghost towns in every state, but some of the most picturesque, and intriguing of all ghost towns are to be found in the mountains, foothills and valleys of Northeastern Washington State. Collecting Northeastern Washington ghost towns is a tough job, becasue this part of our Evergreen State was the heart of mining and Boom Towns that once housed thousands of miners and settlers. Now they are now uninhabited and in many cases a challenge to locate.
There are many reasons for "collecting" ghost towns. The reasons vary with individuals and places, and the variations seem endless. The binding similarity of all the reasons is the sense of adventure to be had in seeking out lost and forgotten Boom Towns of yesteryear.
Simply finding such spots is enough to drive some ghosttowners wild with excitement. Such people love to hear of a new ghost town site, research its location, seek out this relic from the past, and add it to their "collection" of sites visited. Photography leads some into hunting for lost ghost towns, as does hiking and being in touch with nature.
Many of the sites are in beautiful locations enhanced by decaying, ramshackle ruins. Avid history buffs can easily fall prey to the habit of seeking out ghost towns.
It is fortunate that most of the avid ghost town seekers value the sites highly, and religiously leave the sites as they found them. It is unfortunate that others also come to ghost towns, many just to vandalize such unprotected places. For good reasons and bad, many people come to ghost town sites, because the too quickly disappearing ghost towns are interesting places.
It is well that ghost towns attract the attention of interested history buffs, for as all man-made things, the ghost towns do not last forever. Nature destroys such places thoroughly and completely. Winds tear things loose and blow them every which way. Deep snows pile high on roofs already weak with dry rot and sagging from many former snows. Weak, they yield to strains and fall. When the roofs go the walls do not stand long, and in a few short years there is only a rotting pile of wood. Even that rots back into the earth, new growth hiding the displaced earth of foundations. The relentless truth of nature, with large and small bites, gnaw endlessly at the abandoned works of man, and the wilds reclaim their own. It is not a bad thing, therefore, for those who find the sites intriguing, to explore such spots while traces of those who built there still remain.
The ghost town site, emptied of almost all evidences of its Boom Town existence, is becoming the most common kind of ghost town in Northeastern Washington. A few cellar pits, portions of retaining walls, a few hints of raised stone foundations, and as one looks closer endless bits of scattered glass and metal tins are the remains of better times.
Today’s ghost town collector needs to be more interested in the site than in the town itself. Such a person’s imagination must put flesh back on the scattered wooden skeletal remains that still exist. To the history buff who can do this the ghost town sites come vaguely back to life, ghosts of miners and buildings rebuilt in the visitors mind’s eye. This mental reconstruction of the time and place so decayed by forces of nature, will become a most pleasurable experience.
If collecting ghost towns sounds like fun, try it. Come to Northeastern Washington State, and seek among the foothills, mountains and valleys for remains of ghost towns long dead.
