# Disappearing towns **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 12, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021 "2009-12-12T20:46:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/1 "2009-12-12T20:46:10Z")
My father was a child in Leadville, Colorado; but he was born in Ragan, Nebraska. I hear mention of Leadville from time to time, but I’ve never heard anything about Ragan. [So I looked it up](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragan,_Nebraska). > [@](#): > > According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 0.2 square miles (0.6 km²), all of it land. > > As of the census of 2000, there were 46 people, 19 households, and 12 families residing in the village. I wonder what the 2010 census will show? Because it sounds like a place destined to disappear. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/2 "2009-12-12T21:00:27Z")
Pennsylvania has the definitive vanishing town: [Centralia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania). A nearby town, [Byrnesville](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrnesville,_Pennsylvania), is already long gone. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/3 "2009-12-12T21:03:11Z")
If I’m not mistaken, there’s at least one poster on this board who lives in or near Leadville. ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2009, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/4 "2009-12-12T21:40:38Z")
Leadville is relatively small, but doing just fine. There are plans to reopen the Climax mine if molybdenum prices remain high. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/5 "2009-12-13T00:00:00Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I wonder what the 2010 census will show? Because it sounds like a place destined to disappear. That seems to be happening all over the Great Plains, as family farms disappear and young people leave to find their futures elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/6 "2009-12-13T04:12:41Z")
My father was born in 1928 in Dabney, West Virginia, which was a small but thriving coal camp. We went back there in 2003 and it was totally gone, as in vanished and replaced by 50-year-old second-growth forest. No foundations or anything. I think the old company houses had been built on blocks, which were probably just carted away when the coal company left. You would never have known there was a town there. There was a gas station where the road that runs up the hollow intersected the state highway, but it was newly built and not related to the presence of the town - just a roadside stop. ---
**Author:** ![MadTheSwine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MadTheSwine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadTheSwine)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/7 "2009-12-13T04:34:27Z")
I was in Maple, Texas when Elvis died > **[Maple, Bailey County, Texas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple,_Bailey_County,_Texas)** > > Maple is an unincorporated community in Bailey County, Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had an estimated population of 75 in 2000. > Maple is located along FM 596 in southern Bailey County, about 35 miles (56 km) southwest of Muleshoe, 25 mi (40 km) south of Lariat, 9 mi (14 km) north of Virginia City, and 72 mi (116 km) northwest of Lubbock. > Named for early settler Maple Wilson, the community was established during the early 1920s. At that time, local ran... ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/8 "2009-12-13T04:36:04Z")
> [@Hyperelastic](#): > > My father was born in 1928 in Dabney, West Virginia, which was a small but thriving coal camp. We went back there in 2003 and it was totally gone, as in vanished and replaced by 50-year-old second-growth forest. No foundations or anything. I think the old company houses had been built on blocks, which were probably just carted away when the coal company left. You would never have known there was a town there. There was a gas station where the road that runs up the hollow intersected the state highway, but it was newly built and not related to the presence of the town - just a roadside stop. Since I’m a WV native, I googled Dabney, WV, and seeing where it was, in the southern WV coal fields, I completely believe it could have vanished, as you reported. (Google Maps shows much evidence of mountain-top removal in the surrounding area. ☹ ) I think there are many other instances in WV of coal company towns that disappeared in a similar fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/9 "2009-12-13T05:00:27Z")
Makes me think of “Life Without People”, which showed a LOT of cities that are devoid of humanity… Q ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/10 "2009-12-13T23:35:30Z")
> [@freckafree](#): > > Since I’m a WV native, I googled Dabney, WV, and seeing where it was, in the southern WV coal fields, I completely believe it could have vanished, as you reported. (Google Maps shows much evidence of mountain-top removal in the surrounding area. ☹ ) > > I think there are many other instances in WV of coal company towns that disappeared in a similar fashion. Yeah, my dad lived in several of the towns up and down that run, and most of them are gone. The people who were left seemed to have gathered in one or two areas. There was a big mountaintop removal project at the end of the run if I remember correctly. They can’t just throw people off their land like they could in the company town days, but nobody can or will stop them from setting off huge explosions near houses and schools, ruining peoples’ wells, blocking off graveyards, and generally doing things that would get you sued or arrested anywhere else. [This](http://www.ilovemountains.org/memorial/c307/) is what happened to Yolyn and Chambers. My dad’s baby brother is buried at Chambers but good luck getting anywhere near the graveyard now, if it even still exists. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disappearing-towns/521021/11 "2009-12-13T23:58:21Z")
> [@freckafree](#): > > Since I’m a WV native, I googled Dabney, WV, and seeing where it was, in the southern WV coal fields, I completely believe it could have vanished, as you reported. (Google Maps shows much evidence of mountain-top removal in the surrounding area. ☹ ) > > I think there are many other instances in WV of coal company towns that disappeared in a similar fashion. \*Daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County, Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay. ‘Well I’m sorry, my son, but you’re too late in askin’. ‘Mr. Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.’ \*