History's Mysteries- Ghost Towns

From Namibia’s deserts to Connecticut’s forests, today’s episode is your ticket to the world’s most fascinating ghost towns. We’ll walk through empty streets and silent ruins, sharing stories of places frozen in time—each with secrets, tragedies, and legends that won’t be forgotten. Ready to explore the past and discover history’s haunting mysteries? 

https://www.losethemap.com/scariest-ghost-towns-in-the-world/

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/eerie-fascinating-pictures-kolmanskop-desert-diamond-ghost-town

https://www.japan.travel/en/japans-local-treasures/hashima-battleship-island/#:~:text=A%20World%20Heritage%20Site%20off%20the%20coast%20of%20Nagasaki&text=Once%20the%20most%20densely%20populated,season%20and%20the%20typhoon%20season.

https://www.timeout.com/italy/things-to-do/craco-abandoned-ghost-village-basilicata-italy

https://www.architecturaldigest.in/story/inside-a-ghost-town-in-italy-thats-been-abandoned-since-the-1970s/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houtouwan

https://www.abandonedspaces.com/islands/houtouwan-village.html

https://www.alaska.org/detail/kennicott-mine-ghost-town-walking-tour

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/oradour-sur-glane-martyred-village

https://www.wmf.org/monuments/old-belchite

https://turkishtravelblog.com/the-ghost-village-of-kayakoy/#google_vignette

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudleytown,_Connecticut

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pripyat

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to Cashley Presents History's Mysteries, the podcast where we dig into the past's most puzzling stories, unsolved mysteries, and tales that won't stay hidden. We're your hosts, Kevin and Ashley.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

In each episode, we'll look at the facts, question the official stories, and explore the darker corners where history gets interesting. Whether you're a skeptic, a believer, or just love a good mystery, you're in the right place. Settle in, keep an open mind, and get ready to rethink what you know about the past.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

I've done all those things.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Have you ever wondered if the quiet towns, empty buildings, or forgotten roads you see every day are hiding stories of lost civilizations, unsolved tragedies, or restless ghosts? In this episode, we're exploring some of the world's most mysterious ghost towns. From deserts covered in sand to villages filled with legends, these abandoned places show the past is never really gone. Stay with us, what we find might change how you see the world. Imagine walking through the quiet streets of a forgotten town where every empty building has a story from the past. Today we're looking into the world of ghost towns. According to Geotab.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Geotab?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Says that there are more than 4,500 ghost towns in the US alone.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Really?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I don't think I've ever seen one in person, have you?

SPEAKER_03 1:36

Ghost town? Like a whole ghost town? I don't think so. Like I've been to places where there's some houses and stuff that are like abandoned and different things like that, but not like a whole town.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yeah. Some are open to visitors and let you see history up close, while others are closed and hidden away.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Like a lot of these are, I imagine, are gonna be like old mining towns or oil, maybe. I don't know if that's old enough.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Yeah, so I actually did not do a lot of the US ones because they were mining towns. So outside of the US had kind of cooler stories. The first one is Coleman's cop Nambia. Imagine it's 1908. A man is clearing sand from railroad track for his German boss. The man's name is Zachariah. He notices something sparkling in the sand. Oh, diamonds. He found diamonds. And this discovery quickly turns a patch of desert into a busy town. He actually got nothing for finding them.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

Oh, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

By 1912, Kalman's cop had shops, a casino, an ice factory, fresh water brought in by train, even European opera performances. The town produced one million carrots of diamonds each year.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Fourteen of those carrots went to Selena.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah. But the good times didn't last. As the diamonds ran out, the memory of a terrible genocide against the against the Herrero people lingered. Coleman's cop success faded. By 1956, the town was empty, slowly being swallowed by the desert.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Today So is that fifty years that was around? 1908 to 56?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

So I believe the the German people that came in killed like 60,000 of the Herrero people.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

What? The Germans committed genocide? They're not the only ones. There'll be more of that later. One's just okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Today sand fills the empty rooms and drifts through the broken windows, creating a striking scene. Visitors need a permit to enter. But about thirty-five thousand people still explore these empty buildings each year. The next one is Hashima Island in Japan.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

So it's a whole island? Is it so it's a ghost island, not just a ghost town? That's even more scary.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

This one's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_03 4:05

So Well, I kind of want to talk about the one in Nambia.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

So you were saying that like 60,000 people were killed there?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

60,000 Herero people were killed.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Were they killed?

SPEAKER_01 4:16

After they tried to rebel against the German settlers.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

After they found diamonds? Or like before?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Uh it was four years before the diamond discovery that they killed them.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

I was just thinking like the right those the tragedies and things like that, like that keep spirits around or whatever would make that kind of scary and haunting.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Yeah, this place is pretty cool. There's just like sand coming indoors and windows. It's just filling up these this entire town. But when that guy was shoveling the railroad tracks because there's just sand dunes forming on them, so he has to shovel the stuff. It's like his job, his maintenance job.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Yeah. Just walking the tracks, shoveling sand.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, so no one lives in this town because it's well yeah, they had to train water in, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah. It's hard to live somewhere if you don't have water.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

But they did it in the 1900 early 1900s.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Where?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

It's like this place. But that's what I'm saying. Yeah. We're saying the same thing. But they could have done it. They could do it now.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Oh. Well, but it's expensive to bring water in by train. You have to have someone to shovel the tracks.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Alright, now you can move on to the scary island.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Hashima Island is an island that rises out of the sea and is known for like all islands, Ashley. It is known as Battleship Island because of its shape. It was once a busy center for an underwater coal mine.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

I wouldn't have never heard of that before. Yeah. I mean, I guess that makes sense because it's all just land and everything. It's just where your water is. Like if all the water goes back to being ice. Yeah. I don't know. Anyways, I mean it makes sense, but that seems like a hard way to get coal.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah. Starting in 1890, thousands of workers and their families lived close together on these sixteen rocky acres. At its busiest, more than five thousand people lived in the concrete community. Wow. On sixteen acres. It's crazy. When the coal ran out, everyone left quickly and the island was abandoned. The buildings have been worn down by wind and waves ever since. Today you can visit on a guided tour if the weather is good, but storms can make it too dangerous to explore.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

You said that they they left quickly when the coal was gone. Like I was just imagining some guy coming out of the coal mine. That's it, everyone. Last one. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Get out. So this is the island. It literally looks like a battleship.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Oh wow. That is, yeah, different than I And just like straight up buildings.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Like huge, tall buildings. Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

I mean, you said it was only 16 acres with like 5,000 people. So you gotta go up. Yeah, you have to go up. Or I mean I guess you go down.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

So I don't know if it's I don't remember if it's real or man-made island, but it looks man-made.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Well, I wonder if they just put the like what do they call those keys or whatever? Like cement like wave things around it. Break the waves and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Probably. Next we have What was that called again?

SPEAKER_03 7:01

Battleship Island, but Hashima Island. Hashima. The next one is And that was in like the late 1800s.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, 1890. The next one is Craco, Italy. The town sits thirteen hundred feet above the countryside and has a history as rough as the cliffs below. The Greeks founded Craco in the 6th century AD while escaping a malaria outbreak, but the area's history goes back even further, with tombs from the eighth century BC. This is pretty crazy. Life was always uncertain here. In 1963, landsides forced people to leave, and later floods and earthquakes made things worse. By 1980, Craco was left empty and left in ruins. Today, fences keep the village secure, but guided tours let visitors walk the empty streets. Its striking look has attracted filmmakers as scenes from Passion of the Christ and James Bond's Quantum of Solace were filmed here. Also haven't seen that. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

That one would seem like it'd be more interesting because it was inhabited until the eighties. So that would be that would be interesting. Like the other ones were much older.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, this town is really cool. It's part of the mountain, it looks like it's like they carved it out of the mountain.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

And you said the the Greeks did it, even though it's in Italy. Like the Greeks were the ones that made it, settled it.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

That's what it says. The next one is Hotuin, China. About forty miles from busy Shanghai. Hotawin was once a fishing village of 2,000 residents. As fish became scarce, the life on the island got harder. Families left one by one. By early 2000s, the village was empty. The thick kutzu vines, which can grow a foot a day, covered the abandoned homes. This one's on an island as well, off of China. Today, Huda Win looks like something from a fairy tale, with plants taking over every building. Visitors can't stay overnight, but they can walk the overgrown past during the day and find a place to sleep on a nearby island. Nearly 90,000 people visit each year to see how nature has reclaimed the village.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Did you say when they left the village?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

By the early 2000s, they'd all left.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Oh wow, so this one was even newer than the one from the 80s. Yeah, I think I think in China, like this is a big thing that's happened in the last like several decades, is people coming from rural China and they're all coming to all the cities. That's why they have their cities are so big now. Yeah. Because like everyone's coming in from all of like it maybe like if everyone left, I'm gonna make someone up say here, Iowa and Kansas, and right, what do they call them? The flyover states. I think Utah is probably included in that too, right? And we all went to California, Washington, Texas, Florida, New York, right? We all went to their our cities would be really big too.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

But yeah, that's really cool that it's just like about a foot a day?

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah. I feel like they probably left because you can't even grow anything because it's you're fighting back this plant.

SPEAKER_03 10:13

Yeah, fighting back everywhere all over the place. On everything. If your fish ran out and you gotta fight the jungle every day.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

Doesn't bamboo grow really fast like that too? Something like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

That's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

You can actually watch that grow. That'd be kind of crazy to watch a plant grow.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

The next one is Kennicott, Alaska.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

I was gonna say Kennicott copper mine.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Uh we'll talk about that.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

In the remote Alaska wilderness, the Kennicott mines opened in 1903, attracting people hoping to strike it rich near the Kennicott glacier. So people would come in, they hired people at a much higher rate than anyone else could, and so people would move here to do this. And it's on a glacier. So the most striking feature which you've probably seen is the 14-story red mill that stands as a reminder of the days when machinery filled the mountains with noise. The mill and glacier have slightly different names because of a clerical mistake made over a hundred years ago. So it's just an E instead of an I in the middle of it. So life was tough there. Miners worked every day of the week. They shared crowd crowded bunk beds and sent their money home. Over the course of 30 years, the mine produced more than 200 million in copper. By 1935, just as a geologist had predicted, the copper ran out and Kennicott became quiet. Today, the remains are protected as a natural historic site, and the National Park Service is working to restore the old buildings that once made up the busy community. So oh, I guess I took it out. So Kennecott Copper in Alaska is the same Kennecott Copper mine in Utah. It was originally the same owner, but who has bought bought out now? But yeah, they were the same company.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

And they actually have a few different places, I believe.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Sure, they're a mining company, so they have mines in different places.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

So this is the 14th story building. I'm sure you people 14 stories?

SPEAKER_03 12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

I don't know if you can't really see a lot of it, but it's pretty cool looking.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

Does it just like go up the mountain? Yeah. So it's not standing up 14 stories, it goes 14 stories but follows the mountain slope. I think so. Oh, okay. Because yeah, I'm looking at that and I'm like, I don't 14 stories is tall. I don't see anything sticking up.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

That's interesting. I mean, I guess it's 14 stories. You have to go up 14 flights of stairs or 13 flights of stairs.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Yeah. The next one is Oha du Shu Glan, France.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

On the afternoon of That was French?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah. It's brutal. What?

SPEAKER_03 12:52

That sounded like Chinese.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

My French is also poor.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

No, not you, the lady that you had say it on the computer. That was definitely Chinese.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

On the afternoon of June 10th, 1944, tragedy struck the village Ohadu Shuglan. Major Adolf Dykman and about 120 to 200 German soldiers blocked every road and field, calling the villagers to the town center. Most people thought this was just a routine ID check. Suddenly the situation turned violent. The men were separated and taken to six different barns where they were shot. The women and children were locked in a church where a grenade was thrown in, the building was set on fire, anyone who tried to escape was shot. Only seven people survived. Five of them were men protected by bodies of others that were falling. One woman jumped out of a window, even though she was shot five times, and a child escaped before the roundup. Afterwards, the Germans set the whole town on fire. The reason for the attack is still debated. It may have been revenge against the French resistance, retaliation for a Nazi officer's death, or a warning as the Germans moved toward Normandy. Before leaving, the soldiers burned the village. I already said that. Today the ruins remain a national memorial silent and a silent reminder of what happened there. This one's pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

Yeah, so if they burned it to the ground, like what ruins are still there? What's still left?

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Oh, they were made of brick.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

Can't burn brick down.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Well, it's not standing well, but there's parts of buildings there still, but it's just been abandoned. No one's done anything to it since Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

With all of that, you'd have to knock it down. But like you said, it's a historic like monument now.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Yeah. So sad. Uh the next one is Bilcheet, Spain. Bilcheet was a has a long history dating back to Roman times, and its ruins still bear witness to the past. During the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, the town became a battleground and was heavily bombed, leaving it in ruins. So this was like the fascists versus the socialists or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

So you're talking about the Spanish Civil War? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Some something similar to that. The survivors had to leave their homes and move to a nearby area, leaving behind broken arches and damaged buildings that hint at a town's former beauty. Today walking through Bilchit is like visiting a time capsule, quietly reminding visitors of the destruction and war and st and the strength of those who once lived there.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

So is it also a national monument or anything like that? Or is it just an area and people just go to it?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

I don't know if this one's kind of falling apart, but it has it has cool steeples and buildings that are falling apart, but they're very pretty. Some of them are red, like red sand, brick, cobble streets. Yeah. It's a cool building. A cool village. Next is Povgelia Island, Italy. Surrounded by mystery and legend. This is a group of three islands near Venice. Two are natural, one is man-made, and it's uh the man-made one is an octagonal fortress. Its history is dark and varied. First settled in the seventh century, it was once a tax free zone, but was abandoned during the war in the 14th century. Later it was used as a storage area, a customs checkpoint, and most famously a quarantine station for plague victims.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

In the twentieth century It went from a tax-free zone to a customs checkpoint.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

And then where everyone was sent if you had the plague.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Well, I just mean like tax-free zone and then custom checkpoint. The founders of this tax free zone probably rolling over in their graves.

unknown 17:02

Probably.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

In the 20th century, it became a psychiatric hospital, which added to its eerie reputation. Some legends say up to a hundred thousand people died on this island.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

And some say their ashes mixed with the soil and their spirits still haunt the ruins, while others say that there is a large pit where all the bodies are buried on the island.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

That's a large pit. A hundred thousand? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

It's old building buildings and and overgrown grounds are closed to visitors, which keep stories of the ghosts and the grim past alive. So you cannot go to this island.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Do they have people watching it?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 17:41

Tell me I can't go. This makes me want to go.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yeah. Going to destroy this. It is a Turkish name. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Give it a couple shots. See what you get.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Kaikoi.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Kekoi.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

This is a hillside village known as Kaikkoi to the Turks and Levisi to the Greeks. It was once full of life. Its cobbled streets were lined with churches, shops, and schools where the Greeks and the Turkish neighbors lived side by side. Everything changed in 1923, when a large population exchange and ethnic cleansing of Turkey to bring back the Turkish people forced more than a million Greek Orthodox people to leave Turkey. While hundreds of thousands of Muslims were sent away from Greece, many Greeks from the VC had already escaped Turkey earlier, or were victims of genocide, leaving behind empty homes and lost hopes. The Turks who returned did not want to settle in the deserted town. Then in 1957, a strong earthwake earthquake struck, turning the city into a ghost village. Today the stone ruins quietly remind us of a once thriving community lost to history. Next one is Dudley Town, Connecticut.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

Dudley Town? The name alone's white washed up.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Hidden in the thick woods of dark entry forest, Dudley Town is known for its eerie legends and often called the most haunted ghost town in New England. It was founded in 1740 by Thomas Griffiths and later settled by the Dudley family. The town's history is filled with stories of curses and tragedy. Some locals say the Dudleys were descendants of Edmund Dudley. Who is an English nobleman who was executed for treason in 1510, and his death was supposed to have brought a curse on the family. So I looked him up on family search. It's kind of hard because 1400s are a little rough for tracing people. But his son actually did work for the king or someone high up in England. So after he was put to death, his son did end up working for them. So I don't know how cursed the family actually was, but the curse is blamed for the failed crops, madness, and mysterious deaths in the village. Historians still argue about whether the curse is real, but the land's history goes back even further, as it was once a sacred Mohawk territory. In reality, Deadly Town's decline was more practical. It was remote, the soil was poor, and the water was hard to find, so people couldn't survive there. Today the ruins have been damaged by vandals and the area is closed to visitors, which only adds to the haunted reputation. So this one says the soil was bad, but there's a lot of trees and things that grow there.

SPEAKER_03 20:43

Yeah, we maybe couldn't grow like crops.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah. So this is creepy, deadly town.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Yeah, it looks like Amineyville horror type stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Just a creepy house.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Yeah. I wonder if that whole I've never really been to that part of the country. I wonder if it all looks like that. And that's why Stephen King writes the books that he writes. Yeah. Because that's what he grew up with.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Last one is Pripyat, Ukraine. Built during the nuclear age, this was once home to nearly 50,000 people, including families, workers, and children who lived near the Chernobyl power plant. On April 27, 1986, the day after the disaster, everyone had to leave the city abandoning their homes, schools, and dreams. It's crazy that it took a day to make them leave.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Well, I don't think they knew what happened at first. Oh, they didn't? Yeah, like it was it was like designed and built to not fail. And so when they had issues and problems, they were like, no, that can't be true that can't be true. Can't be right. And like they had their little I forget what they're called, the little meters. It's Geiger counters, I guess what it's called. Right. But they only went up to like, I don't know, ten or something, or so like, oh, there's only ten. But like that's all they went up to. So if there was a thousand, it would read ten.'cause that's as high as it could go. Yeah. Stuff like that. And so I think it just took a while because they didn't think it could happen. They the people who were in charge weren't great. Like it's just one of those catastrophes, right? That's perfect storm of all these things together.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

There's a Ferris wheel, which is part of an amusement park that was set to open just days after Chernobyl incident.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

It still stands Also it never actually It was supposed to open four days after I just thought it was like there and just part of the town and everything.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Dang. Never got used.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Yeah. So it still stands as a symbol of lost innocence. In 2020, on the 50th anniversary of the town's founding, former residents gathered to remember their city. For a while tours let visitors walk through the empty streets, but recent conflicts have made it unreachable in the world. I know there's been some stuff and I should have looked it up and wrote about it about the animals that are still there and like how they've adapted.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Yeah like their bodies can deal with the radiation now and the different stuff yeah like the dogs I've pretty interesting. One of them was about the dogs different deer.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Yeah it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Yeah the the HBO show Therner it's really good. Yeah. If anyone's interested watch it watch it.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

That is it. So thanks for coming along as we explored forgotten towns, lost communities around the world. Each empty building and quiet street remind us that history still holds many mysteries.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

So many.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Until next time keep asking questions, keep exploring and remember the greatest mysteries in histories are the ones we haven't solved yet