# Has a large US city ever just disappeared? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 24, 2009, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787 "2009-11-24T16:36:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/21 "2009-11-24T21:06:31Z")
Not exactly what you’re looking for, but [Rosewood, Florida](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood,_Florida) and [Greenwood, (Tulsa) Oklahoma](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwood,_Tulsa,_Oklahoma) should be on the list if only for the [reasons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre) they [disappeared](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot). CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/22 "2009-11-24T21:54:53Z")
I’ve heard that every four years, the Boy Scout National Jamboree becomes the fourth or fifth largest city in Virginia, with its own post office, zip code and all. Of course, after the jamboree is over, all the scouts go back home, and it disappears for another four years. > [@](#): > > Vanport Oregon went away on May 30, 1948. It was at one time the 2nd largest city in Oregon with a peak population of around 40,000. > [@](#): > > I understand that some cities in places like Ohio got bypassed by the railroads, and essentially disappeared. I have no idea how large they were. Along similar lines to both of these is the city of Johnstown, PA (currently 24,000 residents, though I don’t know what it was at its peak). In 1889, the city was almost entirely destroyed by a terrible dam-burst flood, but eventually recovered, and then in the 1950s, they sustained another major blow, when the Interstate Highway System bypassed them. And, of course, they’re also suffering from the decline of the American steel industry, since the mills were the city’s primary industry. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/23 "2009-11-24T21:55:29Z")
> [@Todderbob](#): > > There’s an economic reason that this doesn’t happen: It costs money to build infrastructure. More now than in the past (running water, electric, roads, phone, cable, etc). > Once a city becomes run down to a certain extent, it becomes economically viable for companies to buy up large swaths of it, and rehabilitate it. Buying tons of housing and office space on the cheap. Some towns on the Iron Range of northern Minnesota got moved a few miles when it was discovered that the iron deposit ran right under where the city had been platted. For example, North Hibbing was moved 2 miles south to merge with (and eventually replace) the old village of Alice, MN. Hibbing had a population of 20,000 at the time, a fair sized town. But it was 1915-1920, so not too much in the way of infrastructure (running water, electric, roads, phone, cable, etc) yet to worry about. Though they still have some streetlights, fire hydrants, etc. on abandoned streets that run right up near the edge of the mine pit. P.S. The village of Alice was just far enough from the jobs at the mines north of Hibbing that a local man started a bus company to haul people back and forth. Named the _Greyhound Bus Company_. It spread a bit from there, eventually. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/24 "2009-11-24T21:57:43Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > Yeah, but when there wasn’t a Tyre, there was always a spare Tyre somewhere. > > (Also not in the US.) :smack: Somehow, I confused this with another, completely unrelated thread not limited to the U. S. of A. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/25 "2009-11-24T22:03:16Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > None of them was a “city”. I understand there’s a town in New Jersey that was deserted because of threatened flooding. Sounds like the Tocks Island dam project: > **[Tocks Island Dam controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocks_Island)** > > A 1950s proposal to construct a dam near Tocks Island across the Delaware River was met with considerable controversy and protest. Tocks Island is located in the Delaware River a short distance north from the Delaware Water Gap. In order to control damaging flooding and provide clean water to supply New York City and Philadelphia, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed building a dam. When completed, the Tocks Island Dam would have created a 37-mile (60-km) long lake between Pennsylvania an... The affected towns weren’t very big though. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/26 "2009-11-24T22:13:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > …Along similar lines to both of these is the city of Johnstown, PA (currently 24,000 residents, though I don’t know what it was at its peak). In 1889, the city was almost entirely destroyed by a terrible dam-burst flood, but eventually recovered, and then in the 1950s,… There was another flood in the 30s and the General Assembly imposed an “emergency flood recovery tax” on booze that we’re still paying. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/27 "2009-11-24T22:27:32Z")
Until Denver overtook it in the 1910’s, Butte Montana was the biggest city west of the Mississippi and east of San Francisco. During the mining boom associated with WWI, it had a population of over 100,000-- Montana’s present biggest city, Billings, only had about 82,000 people in the last census. After the price of copper dropped and underground mining gave way to less labor-intensive strip mining in the 1950’s, the population slowly dropped until it leveled out in the 20,000 range, though it’s been recovering somewhat and is back to about 30,000. (although the population does get close to the old days during St. Patrick’s Day and Evel Knieval Days) So while there were maybe bigger declines in population elsewhere, I think this is the best example of what was once _the_ influential urban area in a region (it was practically the only “city” in the northern Rockies) essentially wiling away to nothing and becoming a sleepy little town. It still has a large central downtown area, but something like 60% of the buildings are completely abandoned which gives it a very strange feel of being sort of like a “ghost city”. Another bonus is that about half the city did actually literally disappear into a massive strip mine, which is now filling up with highly acidic water! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/28 "2009-11-24T22:38:33Z")
There are places like [Carondelet, Missouri](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carondelet,_St._Louis)(incorporated 1851, annexed by St. Louis 1870) and Oak Cliff, Texas (incorporated 1890, annexed by Dallas 1902) that went bankrupt or for some other reason disincorporated and were absorbed by other cities, or like Lone Oak, Kentucky (1981-2008) that dropped their legal standing as cities, but it isn’t like the people and homes disappeared. Times Beach, Missouri (1925-1983) was evacuated following the discovery of dioxin contamination and was disincorporated two years later. It’s a state park now. Valmeyer, Illinois flooded so many times that its residents finally gave up and moved the town two miles away. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/29 "2009-11-24T23:09:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve heard … post office, zip code … Same stuff is often claimed about Cooper’s Lake Campground in Slippery Rock, PA when the S.C.A. takes over for [Pennsic](http://www.pennsicwar.org) every year. Slippery Rock - 3068\*. Pennsic 2009 - 10,953. Butler - 15,121\* (the county seat). \*(2000 census) CMC fnord! ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/30 "2009-11-24T23:15:43Z")
Annexation - I just looked up the largest cities in the US in 1900, and number 27 was Allegheny, PA at about 130,000. It was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907 to become the “North Side”, but it’s not like it really ceased to exist. Boomtowns - [Pithole, PA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithole,_Pennsylvania) fell from 15,000 to 2,000 in 2 years. Currently a ghost town / tourist attraction. You’re going to find a lot of cases like this. A quick look at wiki’s [boomtown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomtown) article turns up Belleville, CA and Desdemona, TX, for instance. To get a concrete answer, some parameters probably have to be set. How much of a collapse are we looking for? In percentage or absolute terms? For what reason - does abandonment due to disasters rather than economic collapse count? Do you want to disallow short-lived boomtowns? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/31 "2009-11-24T23:22:12Z")
> [@](#): > > There was another flood in the 30s [in Johnstown] and the General Assembly imposed an “emergency flood recovery tax” on booze that we’re still paying. And another one in 1977. But those were both more gradual rising-water types of floods, not a fifty-foot wall of water bulldozing the city, like in 1889. ---
**Author:** ![Andrew\_21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bcef8e/32.png) [@Andrew\_21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andrew_21)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/32 "2009-11-24T23:23:07Z")
[Valdez, Alaska](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdez,_Alaska) > [@](#): > > The original town site was dismantled and abandoned. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/33 "2009-11-25T00:15:10Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > Until Denver overtook it in the 1910’s, Butte Montana was the biggest city west of the Mississippi and east of San Francisco. During the mining boom associated with WWI, it had a population of over 100,000-- Montana’s present biggest city, Billings, only had about 82,000 people in the last census. > > After the price of copper dropped and underground mining gave way to less labor-intensive strip mining in the 1950’s, the population slowly dropped until it leveled out in the 20,000 range, though it’s been recovering somewhat and is back to about 30,000. (although the population does get close to the old days during St. Patrick’s Day and Evel Knieval Days) > > So while there were maybe bigger declines in population elsewhere, I think this is the best example of what was once _the_ influential urban area in a region (it was practically the only “city” in the northern Rockies) essentially wiling away to nothing and becoming a sleepy little town. It still has a large central downtown area, but something like 60% of the buildings are completely abandoned which gives it a very strange feel of being sort of like a “ghost city”. > > Another bonus is that about half the city did actually literally disappear into a massive strip mine, which is now filling up with highly acidic water! Wow, that’s fascinating! Did the population centralize and move closer or are they still spread out among the city limits? Did any of the smaller towns and neighborhoods attempt to form their own city? > [@yabob](#): > > Annexation - I just looked up the largest cities in the US in 1900, and number 27 was Allegheny, PA at about 130,000. It was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907 to become the “North Side”, but it’s not like it really ceased to exist. > > Boomtowns - [Pithole, PA](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithole,_Pennsylvania) fell from 15,000 to 2,000 in 2 years. Currently a ghost town / tourist attraction. You’re going to find a lot of cases like this. A quick look at wiki’s [boomtown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomtown) article turns up Belleville, CA and Desdemona, TX, for instance. > > To get a concrete answer, some parameters probably have to be set. How much of a collapse are we looking for? In percentage or absolute terms? For what reason - does abandonment due to disasters rather than economic collapse count? Do you want to disallow short-lived boomtowns? I would say that any reason would count, lots of shit happens in the world and I’m curious about residents just up and moving out of a formerly thriving town. I don’t have an absolute limit because I don’t want to leave anything out, maybe the exodus would be to the point where a city couldn’t function as it once did through lack of residents. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/34 "2009-11-25T00:51:18Z")
Is it fair to qualify places absorbed into Greater Metropolitan Areas of larger cities as having “disappeared”? I mean, when people talk about London, they’re not generally referring to just The City (the square mile at the very heart of London), but the Greater London Area. Somewhere like Enfield Town, for example, used to be a smallish market down a day or so outside what was then London, but it’s now an outer suburb of the city. Sure, it’s not an independent town anymore, but you wouldn’t say that it’s “disappeared” either. Similarly, places like Anaheim (which used to be in the middle of nowhere) are really part of Los Angeles as far as most people are concerned, and I think most people consider San Francisco to occupy the entire Bay Area. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/35 "2009-11-25T00:56:52Z")
A small town in eastern NC was moved because it was on top of a large mining area, I believe for phosphate. Can’t recall the town name right now. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/36 "2009-11-25T01:10:34Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > and I think most people consider San Francisco to occupy the entire Bay Area. Where do these people think San Jose and Oakland are located? ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/37 "2009-11-25T01:13:41Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Wow, that’s fascinating! Did the population centralize and move closer or are they still spread out among the city limits? Did any of the smaller towns and neighborhoods attempt to form their own city? I think it just got a lot less dense. The neighborhoods that got destroyed by the Berkley Pit (the huge strip mine) were the main working class neighborhoods, so I think it was kind of a case of as the strip mining eliminated the need for a lot of cheap labor, the pit destroyed the housing for those folks too. There’s still a massive surplus of housing there, though-- the city will actually give you one of the many abandoned big Victorian-style houses if you spend $60k fixing it up. Here’s a aerial view of Butte today:[Google Maps](http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&q=46.015556,-112.510278&ie=UTF8&ll=46.002447,-112.518539&spn=0.052108,0.110378&z=13) . It’s sort of interesting that Google Maps still shows McQueen (which was one of the working class neighborhoods) and Columbia Gardens (which was an amusement park), both in the middle of the mines. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/38 "2009-11-25T01:55:47Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Where do these people think San Jose and Oakland are located? Part of the larger San Francisco area, I’d say ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/39 "2009-11-25T02:28:26Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Along similar lines to both of these is the city of Johnstown, PA (currently 24,000 residents, though I don’t know what it was at its peak). In 1889, the city was almost entirely destroyed by a terrible dam-burst flood, but eventually recovered, and then in the 1950s, they sustained another major blow, when the Interstate Highway System bypassed them. And, of course, they’re also suffering from the decline of the American steel industry, since the mills were the city’s primary industry. Per [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnstown,_Pennsylvania), J-town was 75,000 early in the last century. They suffered yet another great flood in 1936, though not as devastating as that of 1889. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2009, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787/40 "2009-11-25T03:00:20Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Part of the larger San Francisco area, I’d say I wouldn’t tell that to the people in Oakland…as a matter of fact, I wouldn’t say that to the people in _San Francisco_, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-large-us-city-ever-just-disappeared/518787.md?page=3)