Why were some boom towns of the American west later turned into ghost towns?

Answer 1

Rhyolite, Nevada (about 65 miles NW of Las Vegas) is one such ghost town - at the height of it's Gold Rush days it had 10,000 people but now it's only got a few ruins left.

Answer 2

Many people have referred to the gold rush as the reason for boom towns, and many of them were, others were due to other resources, such as salt etc. and still others bad placement. Some like Tombstone, Arizona, had a small amount of gold, but most attempts failed, large rances, but little water. When the railroads were developed linking the east and west coast they were the life lines of the country. Being missed by a railroad by as little as 15 miles caused many boom towns to fail in the western US. Later as Interstates replaced the highway systems, the small towns followed suit, and the cities on the interstates grew as they had access to the goods and services from other states.

Answer 3

they weren't really 'turned into' ghost towns, but became ghost towns when the gold, oil, or other resource that caused the town to boom in the first place ran dry. when the money source runs out, people move on and in many cases all that's left of the town is the buildings...

Answer 4

i believe a lot of it had to do with the gold rush. Tons of people went out west in a search for gold. However, there was not as much gold being found as the publicity suggested. so eventually everyone left because there reason for coming was gold and not having found any or having found very little they had no reason to stay..... not sure that this applies to all ghost towns but id say for a large quantity of them it does.

Answer 5

Most of the boom towns were thrown up around gold fields and when the gold played out the population moved on. Another reason was cholera which wiped out entire settlements in the 1800s.

Answer 6

The ones I knew about when I lived in Colorado (like Cripple Creek) were founded by gold hunters. When the gold was gone the settlers left too and the buildings were untouched after that. Now a lot of those towns are coming back as tourist attractions for people who want to see what life in those days was like.

Answer 7

Interesting question to think about. America is a country of immigration. Earlier immigrants came from far away looking for better opportunities. Gold rush, oil rush, or mine rush are all opportunities. They settle down for opportunity. When the opportunity no longer exit, they ride their horses and move on looking for the next opportunity. Unless you do farming (which is difficult to move), it is easy to move from one place to another.
Americans are really living like nomads. Even today, we do similar things, except horses have been replaced with cars. We drive our cars to work, use drive-in, drive-thru, for fast food, grocery, even laundry. When we lose our jobs, we pack up and drive to another place for the next job. There is not much difference compared to the time of the west. Remember, Detroit almost became a ghost town in the 80's when the auto industry went down.

Answer 8

When the railways and roads were built the people moved to town with a road or a line going through them and the others were abandoned.

Answer 9

Because the local staple industry (frequently mining or cattle) died out. The local economy collapsed. Inhabitants relocated, leaving only the deserted buildings behind.
Samething has happened in Austalia, S Africa, and to a lesser degree the UK. not just the USA.

Answer 10

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