National Park After Dark - Abandon: National Park Ghost Towns

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Join us this week as we venture around the US to different National Parks.First stop is Cuyahoga National Park. A park that holds a lot of history and is a staple for conservation and restoration of its resources. Here lies an abandon ghost town, where people were forced to vacate. Now all that is left are their homes and businesses, boarded up and abandon. Next we head to Wrangell St. Elias National Park in Alaska, the location of a once upon of time booming mining town. Today, it sits in the beautiful mountain sides abandon and filled with paranormal stories. Lastly we go to Lake Mead, the deadliest National Park in the U.S. When the Hoover Damn was built, it submerged one of its towns underwater.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Apostrophe: Save $15 off your first visit with code NPADBetterHelp: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy by using our linkJune's Journey: Download the app free today on the Apple App Store or Google Play.Merrell: Get outside and celebrate International Women's Day! Head to the Merrell website to browse all their products.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Old abandoned buildings, deserted cars, and remnants of foundations seem to have found their way over the years across the United States, finding locations deep within the forests and deserts or cities and towns. Each one of them has their own story. They weren't always abandoned. They weren't always old. At one point, these places were new. Someone once was here, and this was their home. They weren't always. They weren't always old. They weren't always old. At one point, these places were new. Someone once was here, and this was their home. Once had a life, they had a story.

Now these places are overgrown with vegetation, and their brick and wood are deteriorating back into the earth. Their stories are fading. The time that once was has passed. One day, these places might be gone entirely, but that day is not today. And right now, we are going to remember their stories. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Are we going to an abandoned town? We're going to multiple abandoned towns today.

Oh, fun. I'm excited. Yeah, so this episode's going to be formatted a little bit different because we're going to go to multiple national parks today. We're going to be visiting some ghost towns that live within the national parks. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I'm so glad that you're doing this one and telling me because I get to sit back and relax and have you take me to all these fun places that I would love to research on my own.

But hearing you tell me is so much better. Yeah, getting to like, you don't have to do the research. You just get to sit back and relax and hear the story. Yes. Cool. Well, welcome back everybody to National Park After Dark. We have a fun episode today. We're going to explore a lot of stories that are going on in these national parks that

maybe you never heard about, but are places you can visit. Oh, before we do start really quick, I just wanted to say that we have received so many positive messages in response to Andrea Langford's episode with People of the Parks. And we're so happy that everybody enjoyed it and felt really inspired by the discussion that we had with her. And we just wanted to say that we are thankful for your positive response because we really enjoyed it ourselves. Yeah, it was really exciting to read all of your messages because we did enjoy it. And we loved reading her book too. So we added it to our book recommendations on our website, npaddpodcast.com. So if you are interested, it's called Ranger Confidential. We have a

link on there to go buy it. It's such an interesting book and Andrea is such a cool person. So definitely go out, get that book. Yeah. Okay. Take me somewhere. Okay. Well, the first place. And I thought this is going to be your guess because this has been something that has been emailed and message to us so many times to go to. But we are going to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which is in Ohio. Okay. I should have guessed this because you're right. We get so many messages about this. First stop is this place and it's a really interesting park for reasons that I didn't know about. So I hope that I can educate you all today because I thought it was really, really cool learning about it. This park is in Ohio. It's in northeastern Ohio and it preserves 32,572 acres of land.

It was originally designated as a national recreation area in 1974 before it was finally turned into a national park in the year 2000. So it's relatively new. And it was developed as a park because when cities began moving into the area, people became very concerned that it would take over the Cuyahoga River and destroy all of the natural resources there. So that's what sparked the further protections of turning it into. a national park instead of the national recreation area. Because Cuyahoga Valley was once a recreation area, this national park is a lot different than other ones in the United States, because a national recreation area is established to preserve and enhance recreation opportunities in scenic and natural places. And often these kind of parks have emphasis on things like fishing,

swimming, wildlife viewing, boating, horseback riding, just lots of different activities. So it's created for conservation and for having outdoor activities. While most national parks, you know, you go hiking there or you go camping there, Cuyahoga is a little bit different because you can go golfing there. They have a ski resort there. They have bike riding. There's tons of running trails through the park. You can go horseback riding. There's a railroad tour that will take you through the park. It's not so much just about the landscape there. There's a bunch of recreation there. That's really interesting because the only park that I can ever remember seeing something similar, Death Valley has a golf course. Oh, really?

Inside of the park? Yeah. I didn't even know that. The world's lowest golf course at negative 214 feet. And it's called the Furnace Creek Golf Course. Oh, wow. And I remember because I drove through Death Valley and we camped there. And I remember seeing a sign for him.

Like, what the hell? Why is there a golf course in the middle of the National Park? And one that's super fucking hot. You're going out and playing golf with no shade. You're in like a literally just valley of death. Or super colds. Or super cold. I was just like, this is very odd.

But anyway. But there's also like random little oasis with palm trees and stuff inside of Death Valley. I don't know. It's just a weird interesting park. But anyways, okay, so Cuyahoga is different in that way. Yeah, it is. and it does have all these recreation places. And this park is situated between huge cities between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio.

So there's a lot of easy access to this. And people escape these cities to this area to get out of the city and into natural areas. So there are over 2.2 million people who come here every year. Interesting. And this park has a lot of old roads that run through it. There's covered bridges. There's even parts of the park where there's an. interstate that essentially like runs over it.

I'm trying to imagine this park and I'm not really doing a good job of it. This park is more about preserving the old state of the towns that were here and the history that's here. And it also has a big history with restoration. And conservation is a huge part of this park. So it's not one of these parks that is all about the locations like if you go to Zion or Great Smoky Mountains. It's all about the landscapes.

This is a lot different. Okay. And there is a lengthy history that goes into this park. And one of them is that inside of the borders of this park, when it was established, there was a dump here that was privately owned previously. And the family that owned it had used it to burn trash and scrap metal. And then at some point, they began accepting industrial and municipal waste. And they did so until the 1980s. And this was before it was a park.

It became a park in 2000. Oh, right, right. Yeah, this was a little bit later established. And then there's also an interstate highway that ran right through the middle of this area of the dump. When the park became established, they began cleaning up this area. And very soon after, the rangers started to complain of headaches. They were complaining of rashes and really strong smells that were coming from it. So they decided that they needed to research this area more. And they requested people to come in and really test what they were removing because people, were getting sick from being in this area. The U.S. Environmental Safety Protection's Agency came in and they deemed it as contaminated, but they not only said it was contaminated, but they said that it was the most contaminated area in the entire country. What? What was it? What was in it? So the companies that they were taking waste from were companies like Ford Motorco, General Motors, Chevron, and Chrysler and they were taking waste from their facilities. So it was just filled with tons and tons of chemicals along with the dump trash site that was there as well. I just feel like there's

regulations for that to properly dispose of different environmental hazards and health health, like what? They were just like, all right, we're just going to dump it all in this one area out here. Yeah, and there were. And I think back in this time that they weren't so regulated. And And they actually ended up suing some of these companies to pay for the cleanup, which ended up costing $50 million to do. Wow. Well, the Cuyahoga River, it was so polluted that in the 1960s, it actually caught on fire. Holy shit.

So this is just like a gross area, essentially. Well, it's a dump, literally. But even from the cities, people really aren't taking care of the area properly. There's not enough conservation going on. So that's kind of where this national park is stepping in, being like, like, okay, there's some really vital resources here and it's a really beautiful area. We can't let this take over. So they spend $50 million to clean it up and this is the most expensive park system cleanup that has ever been.

The National Park Service finally announced in March of 2021 that the cleanup of this area was complete. March of 2021? Mm-hmm. Last year. Okay. And they started this effort in the 80. Yes. Wow. I never knew that. And I mean, obviously it was so polluted and there was such an expansive problem that it took so long, but that is very recent. I mean, it's a year ago, right? March.

Yeah. When it was finally deemed chemical free and everything is back. And actually now it's their fields and their marshland that the area originally was. So it's actually restored back to what it was and there's animal and plant life that are there now. That's awesome. So when, I don't know if you know this, but when they were doing active cleanups, obviously the park had been established, was that area just kind of off limits to visitors because there was an active cleanup going on? I don't know if so much in the more recent years, I'm really not sure. I imagine at the beginning of it because it was so polluted. It was, I mean, people were getting sick from being in there. So I imagine. Plus, it was literally a dump and they had to bring in tractors and tons of stuff to carry

all this stuff out. Then they had to do all the stuff to get rid of the pollution. So I imagine that it was not accessible for a long time. And if you went there now and you didn't know any of that, I'm sure you would never be able to tell. Exactly. Like the pictures of it now just look like a beautiful marsh. Yeah. And that actually brings us to another part of the park, which is the beaver marsh. And this is one of the most visited areas in the entire park. Before this was a national park, the wetlands here were actually drained, and this marsh area was turned into a farm and an auto body shop. The shop was surrounded by old cars, it had worn out parts, and there were a ton of trash.

So this was another area of the park that the National Park Service had to take over, and they had to make efforts to make it a marsh again. So they hauled away the cars, they took away the debris, and after they took all of the out. The marshland started to come back. The beavers who had been there before returned to the area. And the beavers helped restore the natural water levels of the area, which in turn awakened a lot of dormant seeds that were in the soil. And then the wetland plants returned as well. So all of it came back together after they got all of this pollution and trash out of the area. That's awesome. I love that. This episode is brought to you by Prime.

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for a place. You look at these cities or these places that have had so much pollution and they're desolate and they're dead. And it's like, you know, if we clean these up and we really make a big effort, nature can come back. And that's a big message here at Cuyahoga is, yeah, it's not one of these massive parks that people visit for these crazy wild views, but it is a huge example of how we can save our planet. I love that. Oh, I love that so much. Right. It just makes you love this park so much, even though, like, it's one of the smaller parks that you don't think of as often. Now you're like, wow. Well, it is, and it's also a very nice example. Because you're right, you'll see an area and you just think to yourself, that's screwed forever. Like, there's no coming back from that.

You know what I'm saying? Just little areas that you'll see and there's just trash and litter every where and there's not a single green plant left. And it's just, it makes you a little sad. Like, well, that sucks. But like you said, nature will come back. Nature always finds away. And if we clean some stuff up and make a little bit of an effort, nature will do its thing. And there's just hope for places that a lot of times are just kind of written off. Yeah. And this place, people believed in it. And that's why it did. become what it is today and it does have all these beautiful places because it was. And in Ohio, they've actually lost almost 90% of their wetlands just because of development. And now Cuyahoga

protects 1,500 wetlands and it's the home of a ton of different species of wildlife. And it's just become this really great area of restoration and preservation of their wildlife there. Go Ohio. Who would have thought? Ohio. Okay. Well, and like you said, it's between those two big cities, which I've driven by or through. And, yeah, when you think of Cleveland and Akron, you do not think of restoration or conservation. So that's awesome. And kind of now going into the towns, because I did say we're going to be visiting an abandoned town here. People, as I mentioned before, people were concerned about development. And this area was a little bit developed. There was. towns in and around where this national park is. And one of those is the Boston township of Cuyahoga. And this was a little town that was known as Everett. When the National Park Service bought the land, it also allowed the government to purchase each home from the people who live there.

And by the purchase, I mean, the family really didn't have a choice. They had to relocate. They were pretty much forced into it. There were like a couple little rules where they could finagle to stay, but they weren't allowed to change their property. There was just a lot of things that were going to go into it if they did decide to stay and they were really pushing them to leave. And this town was originally in favor of it becoming a national park. You know, when they were like, oh, we're going to live inside a national park. This is great.

A lot of these people were for conservation and loved the area and believed in it. So when they heard it was going to become a national park, they're like, oh, this is great. They didn't realize that that meant that their homes were going to be bought. and they didn't realize that they were planning to purchase the entire town. So some of the families that were here, they weren't just houses. There were businesses. And some of these businesses were in operation for over 100 years. And some of these were farms that were in operation for a long time.

And they actually made a documentary about it. It's on PBS. It's called For the Good of All. And it was made in 1983. And it is a documentary of the people who are being evicted from all of their homes. And they go on and they say, exactly their experience in what happened. And one of the people, they were a farmer in this area. And he was a small town farmer, you know, very local. And the park service essentially told him,

this isn't a big enough business. This is considered essentially a hobby. And we can't keep you here for a hobby and kicked him off of his land. And there were a lot of reoccurring stories that were similar like that. There was a florist who was there for a really long time who had to relocate families who had lived there for generations, were being forced to relocate. So people were getting really upset about it and people were very opposed to being kicked out of their homes. Well, I would imagine, yes. And not that this makes it right or better, but did the park service provide any sort of financial assistance or assistance in relocation? Yeah, so they were buying their properties from them. So they were paying whatever. I don't know what that must.

money was, but I know that they were buying the properties. So they were getting compensated for what was happening. But a lot of people didn't want to move. You know, that's their home. Well, yeah. And their livelihood. Right. It's one thing to be like, yeah, well, I just rent here and it is what it is and I can live somewhere else. I have a feeling that is not the case here. You know, people, it's your home. What if that's somebody's dream home? And like you said, there's that farmer and the florist and who knows how long their families had been there. It's not an easy like, okay, yeah, sure. Just give us what our house is worth and we'll go.

Exactly. This was just a really hard situation for people and they were getting really upset. And there were big headlines about it too. You know, there were headlines that said things like parks swallows up tiny community and the valley, beautiful battlefield, things like that. People were up in arms about what was. was going on now because they didn't want to be kicked out of their homes. And some of the homes that were being taken away were barely inside of the park boundaries. There was one home that was like

100 feet inside the park boundaries and their home was taken. What did they do with the just to demolish them just to get rid of the homes? Yeah. So the idea of moving people out of the town of Everett was supposed to be for conservation and preserving the scenic areas inside the park. So they did have plans to demolish it. But the cost of buying people's property and all of the conservation and cleaning up efforts that had been going on inside of the park had been so much more expensive than they had been planning that they actually ran out of funds to demolish this entire town. Okay. So you're saying that they kicked all of these people out and forced them to relocate and then never ended up doing anything with their house.

Yep. So today, the town of Everett and some of its buildings and homes are still inside of the park. It's completely abandoned. And the homes are boarded up. Their windows, doors, everything, still sitting there, just completely boarded up. That is so wild. Can you imagine the, first of all, the heartache and the rage that you would feel? This was really, this is in the 80s?

So these are people that could literally just walk over there right now. Be like, yep, well, that was my home. I was forced out of. And it's still here. Yes. Because I was told it was going to be demolished and it was for the park and yada yada. And here I am looking at it. Yeah, essentially.

And there's one thing that was written on one of the walls. And it was like, now we know how the natives felt. Ooh. And this area was originally taken by settlers. from the natives originally. Of course. Of course. As was everything. Yes. Yeah. So that was kind of a little bit in poor taste because it was a little bit different. These people were paid. Right. You weren't massacred and forced to adopt a different culture and eradicated. Yeah. So it's a little bit of a stretch. There's a little line there. But that is spray painted up there. This is a town that you can actually walk up to and walk through. And it's abandoned. It's boarded.

up, things like that. And this place has gotten a lot of rumors and legends now of its creepy emptiness of the park. And it has been nicknamed now, Helltown. Does the park service have any sort of plans to do anything with it? I am not sure about that. To get to this place, I know there was a road that was once going into the town, a paved road. There's a big road closed sign on a big cement barrier so you can't drive through it. You got to walk there. And it's pretty much just abandoned now. It's just kind of sitting there from my understanding. I haven't been there personally. But there are a few notable things and there are rumors of ghosts and stuff. And one of the notable buildings inside of Helltown is the old church that is there. It's completely intact. And it's in the very center of the

town. And over years, it's been rumored that this was once a place for Satanus to worship. And this theory kind of began when people saw inverted crosses with the design on the building. And they came up with all these rituals that were going on there from all of my research that I've done on this. I have not found anything that has concluded that this is real. And from the documentary I watched from the people in 1983, they're all farmers. You know, they all seem like they're very simple, nice people. It didn't really seem like there was any like cults going on. And through some research, it said that the inverted cross is actually a very normal sign in it was a Presbyterian church. So is it not so much from the original inhabitants, but from people just moving in now that it's been abandoned,

just other groups of people coming in and to utilize the space for different uses, such as satanic cults and things like that. Is that what it's referring to? Maybe. it was hard to hard to know because it's been owned by the park service so it's not like nobody has been there right yeah so I don't really know where these rumors are coming from but people have labeled Everett as Helltown

because they're claiming a lot of mysterious things are happening here and another legend that comes from here is the old abandoned school bus that is in the woods there or was in the woods there and it is said to be a school bus of children that were on a field trip to the park, but they were met by serial killers and then they were all murdered. And the bus is said to have ghosts of children who come out at night inside of the bus.

And this is another thing where I'm like, this sounds wild. How is this not like a news story? This would be something you could research and really look into. So I did. And in reality, the bus was actually used for a family who had moved to the area and they were renovating their home and they used the bus as a temporary living situation. while that was going on. The park service eventually ended up removing the bus because there were too many visitors wandering through the woods at night to find it. Okay. Yeah, they're like, all right, enough's enough.

There was no kids slaughtered here. Isn't it crazy how things like that start? And then it becomes common knowledge that isn't even substantiated in any sort of reality. Yeah, it's like, where is this coming from? Maybe it's like spear finger, though. People just want to say something. Okay, but that's like a cautionary tale. And there's something to, I mean, I love a good legend. I love a good legend. I love a good, you know, spooky story. But to like spread it as fact is a little different. Yeah.

I don't know what the reason behind that being would be. It's just weird. There is another legend here. And it does have to do with a hearse. Oh, okay. As I said before, to get into this town, you'll pass this big cement road closed sign on the road. And you can't drive through it.

So visitors will walk and they have reported that there's a creepy man at his house there. And if you get too close to his house, he will get into his hearse and he'll chase you. Others have reported seeing the hearse drive down the road and then disappear. And there is a little bit of truth behind this legend that could be explained as maybe a ghost because in this town it did have a family that owned a hearse. And it was something that they would take out on Halloween every single year for spooky rides. Oh, I love that. Okay. So maybe.

So maybe it's true. And then there's another legend that also could have some truth behind it. And there is a cemetery in this old town. And visitors have reported seeing a ghost that sits on a bench there and stares out into the distance. And interestingly enough, there's no bench in the cemetery. But people see this ghost sitting on a bench and it's been reported multiple. times. Okay. That one seems legit. Yeah, that one feels a little bit more realistic than the serial killer and bus and stuff like that. And I don't, I bet that there's some like, some negative

energy in that town. You know, people didn't leave on a happy note. Well, yeah, of course. And there's also the whole thing of not everybody who goes to check out abandoned towns or buildings or whatnot have bad intentions because we have friends that do it, you know? And there is something to be said to get a glimpse into how things once were, especially if they're just kind of left as is. It is really cool. But I feel like these spaces can also draw in people who don't have the best of intentions. And in that way, it brings a lot of bad energy too. So I feel like it's not just because of how it was initially left, but because of who may have came afterwards, if you know what I mean. Yeah. I feel like there could definitely, I could see how this could get the name Helltown,

you know, spooky woods, some weird vibes going on, maybe some hauntings going on over here. And I was thinking about it too. And I know the National Park Service came in and end up taking some of this land and things. But I was thinking about it too. And if the most contaminated place in the entire country was super close to there and in the water sources. I almost wonder maybe it was a good thing. And like people didn't realize it at the time. Maybe everyone there would have gotten cancer. And I've never like follow up with looking into these people or anything.

But I was just thinking about it. Like maybe they were in a really polluted area and it was actually really dangerous for them. And they just and no one knew it at the time. Yeah, that's an interesting take. I didn't think about. But that could be a possibility. Yeah. But at the time, yeah, it sucks.

Yeah, and the documentary was really sad. If you guys want to watch it, it's on YouTube. You can just Google it, but it was really sad. Well, Helltown, Cuyahoga. I'm sure there's someone out there that's listening to this that's been there. So if you have, send pictures. Tell us about your experience. Yeah.

I would be very interested to know because I'm not doing it. So not going. I would go during the daytime, but not at night. That's for sure. Yeah. No, I have a line. And yeah, I would never touch that at night. No.

I would go in the summer on a really sunny, bright, happy day. With multiple people. With multiple people. If it was raining, I wouldn't go in the fall. I bet the scariest time to go is in the fall when, like, most of the leaves have fallen. Yeah. And it's like a little windy. So like sticks and branches are breaking and like everywhere you turn, something's following you.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a scariest time. Okay. Well, that's my first ghost town. Yeah. Okay.

Great. We're going to more. And the next ghost town that we are visiting today is located in a national park in Alaska. We are going to Wrangel St. Elias National Park and Preserve, which is America's largest national park. Stop. I am, oh, my God, I was trying to do it. That's a side note, but my family's getting together for a family vacation, which we haven't done in a really long time. And now that, you know, I'm in Washington, my sister got married. all kind of have our own things going on.

Like we need to do a proper family vacation, which we haven't done in a really long time. And we were trying to pick a location. But all of us have vastly different tastes in what an ideal vacation would be like. And my mom and I kind of lean on the more of like active vacation. Whereas my sister and her husband are like, we want to chill on vacation. Ian's kind of indifferent and my stepdad really couldn't care. I don't know. So there's just like a lot of moving parts.

And I was advocating for Alaska so hard. And my mom was on board with that. She's like, I mean, yeah, you're kind of right there. And I was looking at it and I really wanted to go to this park because my mom and my stepdad were like, well, we've been to Alaska and we've done some of the parks up there. And I'm like, but you haven't done this one. And it looks really, really cool. but it didn't fly. So we're going to Sedona instead. Well, almost Alaska.

Almost Alaska. But it's just so funny that you say this park because I was really pitching this. I feel like you're going to be sad. You're not going now that I'm going to tell you all about it because it's a really cool place. And Alaska is just so magical. It really, really is. You need to go. I'll go with you. It's literally so magical. There's just something about Alaska, you know. It's so warm. wild. Well, and I'm right here. It would be a disservice if I've lived here for however long. It's like a two-hour flight, if that, if that. So, anyway, all right. Well, I'll go with you after we finish recording this episode because it's, okay, great. Okay, well, this park, Rangel St. Elias is located in the southeastern part of Alaska, so it's not too far from Canada. This

This park is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it preserves 13,175,799 acres, which is 53,3, 320 square kilometers. And to put this size into reference, that is six Yellowstone National Parks could fit inside this one. That's crazy. I'm already like in love with it, so you don't have to convince me, and I feel like you're trying to. and I'm already convinced. I love it. Everyone just Googled the photos of this park right now because you're going to also fall in love

because inside of this park is the entire range of mountains and also the San Elias mountain range. And these mountains reach over 18,000 feet or 5,400 meters in elevation and nine of the 16 highest peaks in the United States are here. Mount Wrangell in this park is an active volcano and its last eruption was in 1900. This park is also filled with tidewater glaciers, which are glaciers that eventually reach the ocean. Yeah, see, mom, if you're listening, what are we doing?

I'm going to Alaska. We should be going here. The highest elevations of this park are covered in snow year round and there's ice fields and glaciers and massive peaks. The Malaspina Glacier. that flows from St. Elias Range is larger than the entire state of Rhode Island. And you're able to see the Chetina and the Copper Rivers when you fly over the landscape. You can float rivers here, you can ski the glaciers, you can hike here. And even with all of these activities that are in the park, it is one of the least visited parks in the United States with only about 79,000 people visiting every single year. This park is very remote and it only has two gravel roads that actually

enter the park itself. Rangel St. Elias is filled with wildlife and has the largest concentration of doll sheep in North America with about 13,000 of them living here. There's moose that are often seen here in the willow bogs in the lakes. They have mountain goats, caribou, wolves, and two herds of bison. They have black bears and grizzly bears that flourish here. They also have smaller mammals like lynx, wolverines, beavers, foxes, coyotes, and river otters. Rangel St. Elias National Park is also home to another abandoned ghost town. Kennecott Mill Town is in the heart of the park and it is only accessible by the McCarthy Road or by a small plain. And it is an old mining town that has been abandoned since 1938.

The towns in the mine have been designated as the Kennecott Mines National Historically. landmark inside of the national park. So it's in a national park and this area is also a national historic landmark. And this park also is a UNESCO heritage site. It's just it's got it all. It's magic. And everyone has recognized it and they're like, protect, protect, protect, protect, protect, protect, protect. We need.

Right. Yeah. And how this town originated was in the summer of 1900. There were two prospectors, Jack Smith and Clarence Warner, who headed to the area in search of copper. and when they got there, they found that the wrangle range was full of it. It took almost two years of sampling and researching the deposits, but they found that it had the richest concentration of copper in the entire world. After some legal battles about building and conserving the area,

the Kennecott Copper Mining Company ended up starting their building. And this town was extremely difficult and expensive to build. The mill town and the mine camps were made up of over 76 buildings. Some of them were as small as an outhouse, while others were 14-story high mill buildings. And if you look at pictures of this town, it's really pretty. It's this beautiful town on a hillside with like these red, beautiful buildings. And I mean, they're old and they're deteriorating now, but it's just like this really beautiful little mountain town. Okay.

It's just like this beautiful, beautiful area. and to be able to access the sites of copper, it required people to do construction of a 196-mile railroad that ended up costing $25 million. It included 44 miles of bridges that each year were wiped out and needed to be rebuilt. And building a railroad through this desolate area wasn't a small task either. Workers had to blast through mountainsides, rock wall, and through avalanche zones. And there were a lot of people that were reported to have died during the construction of the railroad.

They ended up building five mines, Bonanza, Jumbo, Motherload, Erie, and Glacier. It was in 1911 that they completed their first shipment of copper and sold it for millions of dollars. And then in the height of their mining, they were making over $30 million per shipment. And I say this and it sounds like a really big number because it is, but those numbers today are more like $280 million. Oh, because that's not today's currency. No, this is what they were making back then. So they were making a ton of money.

And they were producing copper from 1909 to 1938, and they made 1.183 billion pounds of copper. And during this time, they had 500 to 600 people that were working and living in this area. And with the amount of profits and people that were here, it became. a full-blown town. There were restaurants, there were homes. They even had a red light district that was here. This reminds me of not to the same degree because it still is a town and it's not abandoned and in a national park. But I lived very, very close to Cripple Creek, Colorado. And it's the same thing. Like it was a booming town when there was mining operations going on. And there are still some mines there. most of them have long since been abandoned some of them maybe functioned to a much lower degree than they once did but you'll see like pictures of the downtown back in its heyday like in the early 1900s and it's just flourishing there's so many people there and so much going on same thing like they had brothels going and it was just the place to be it just like all came up so fast and then as soon as all the mines were kind of depleted it just got kind of just abandoned

Yeah, and that's really what happened here too. I mean, it's a similar story where by the 1920s, they used up a lot of their good quality resources and their profits were starting to decline. And with the cost of the railroad repairs that they had to do every single year and not making enough money, eventually they had to close the place entirely. And they closed it very abruptly. People left immediately. They left their equipment. They left their belongings. And, all of the buildings behind. Well, I would imagine it's just too expensive and labor intensive to do anything different to, you know, remove everything and take it out. And it's just kind of like, well, the money's gone. So like, what are we going to do? You know, they're 196 miles away from things. You know, like they're so far in the middle of nowhere.

How are they going to get this? So they literally just got up and left this entire town. And after they had used so many of the resources here and really took out. all of its copper, conservationists began to fight to make this a protected area and to make it a park. And eventually in 1980, it did become a national park. Since the abandonment of this town, it has become one of the most significant areas of paranormal activity in all of Alaska. Now this town is a large tourist attraction in the park. And over years, people have reported seeing tombstones just off of the path of the old railroad when they are walking down the path.

or hiking around, but on their way back, they'll be gone. Back in the 1990s, the park began developing government housing along the path where the railroad once was, but during the construction of it, the workers were regularly reporting paranormal activity. They were hearing disembodied voices of children and adults. They were seeing disappearing and reappearing grave tombstones, and they were hearing whales and screams of dying miners. Well, I was just going to ask the deaths that are associated here.

I know you said, obviously, on the railroad there were some, but mining, as we've discussed before, is very dangerous work. And I'm sure a lot of people lost their lives there in that way. Definitely. And I was trying to research it, and there's not a lot of written resources of people who died there. And I think part of that is because of how remote this area was. and it didn't say numbers of how many people died, but it did say like mining accidents and railroad accidents, and it didn't say the number of people, but it said there were a lot.

So these construction workers are hearing all of these weird voices, screams, it's pretty scary, and during their work, their tools started going missing. They were reporting some of their tools that were even in their belts were suddenly gone, and then their toolboxes would be gone. and all of this was really frightening the workers and it was happening so much and so often that they ended up stopping the entire project and they just canceled it. Oh, wow. They were scared. That's significant. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not just like I'm creeped out. Yeah. It was happening all the time. And it had been hindering their work and they found like the more that they were out there, the worse that it would become. I don't like that. Yeah.

And people today have still reported. hearing strange noises and cries and the disappearing, reappearing gravestones is one of the most common things that people see while they're out there. That's a very random. I was going to say something about that. That's a very odd apparition to see. Yeah, well, it was from what I was reading, it stems to the people who died along constructing the railroad itself. People were just buried and left with little tombstones along the railroad. So while people are walking along the railroad and it said that a lot of these ended up disappearing over the years or they were removed or whatever it was. So now people are seeing them randomly and then they're

disappearing. Okay. That makes so much more sense because it's like something happened that maybe the headstones are gone, but they were still buried there. So it is rooted in some sort of event. Yes. And what is also really cool about this area is that you can actually do tours to go and explore all of the different places in the town. You can book tours and it will take you through all of the old buildings. You can see the stuff that people left. They'll tell the history of the people who were there and like lived there. And it's really cool. And you can go visit. You can drive out there. You can take a small plane out there. It's definitely, definitely added to my list just because it looks so beautiful and it's so interesting. Well, this is definitely now at the top of my ghost tour list. I mean,

We just talked about this. I just posted about it on Instagram last weekend. Ian and I and a couple friends went and did a dark history tour of Tacoma. And it's something that I have done my whole life. And now I drag Ian along to do. But anywhere I either live or I'm visiting, it's like my favorite thing to do. And it doesn't even necessarily have to be like a paranormal tour. It's just like a history or dark history tour is, you know, kind of my jam. and this is like the crown jewel of that. Like that would just be the best. We have to do it now.

Okay, I'm convinced. Great. Two summers ago, I spent a month in Alaska and it was just the best. So I would love to go back in the summertime and hang out there. Well, you know my address and we can schedule a flight out there. Okay. I'm convinced. The final ghost town that we are going to be talking about is going to be in Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

And this is located in the southeastern corner of Nevada extending into Arizona and is managed by the National Park Service. Is it Nevada or Nevada? I always say Nevada. Here's the thing. I have also grown up saying Nevada. And since I moved here, people say Nevada. So I've kind of adopted saying it that way. And there is something, you know, to be said about there's regional dialects of things. Like people say different words, different ways. It's not meant

to offend anybody. It just is how we've always grown up hearing it. You know, people out here say Nevada. I've always said Nevada. Yeah. Well, I had never been. I've been to Nevada, Nevada now. but I was talking to Al one day and I was like I've never been to Nevada before and he's like, yeah, I can tell by the way you say it's Nevada. And ever since then, I've been very self-conscious about it. So anyway, we're going to Nevada and we're going to Lake Mead and Lake Mead is a reservoir that was created from the Hoover Dam and it is one of the largest man-made lakes in the entire world extending 115 miles, which is 185 kilometers. And in some places, it is over 10 miles wide or 16

kilometers. And it has 550 miles or 885 kilometers of shoreline. So it's huge. It's massive. It's large. It's very big. Yes, very big. It was established as a national recreation area in the year 1936 and the recreational activities that take place here are mostly boating, swimming, and fishing. It is a desert landscape and it does have hiking trails around the shores. There are three desert ecosystems here. It's the Mujavi Desert, the Great Basin Desert, and the Sonoran Desert. There are over 900 plant species, 500 animal species, including 24 rare and threatened species. This park also has a ghost town. No.

No, the theme. Within the park foundries is St. Thomas, Nevada. A once thriving settlement. That is now a ghost town. This area was originally inhabited by indigenous people over a thousand years ago, and they developed and flourished here. The Hopi culture, who still resides in Arizona, have said that these people are some of their ancestors,

and they had buildings that resembled Pueblos and had a huge history here. St. Thomas was founded in 1865 by the first white settlers to the area that were a group of Mormon people. And from my understanding that there were no natives here when they got here. Oh, so they had moved on or just didn't inhabit the area? Yeah, they weren't in the area. There were buildings left of them and there's been research of who they were. but as far as like when they got into this area, there wasn't anybody here. Okay.

The town served as a resting point between Vegas and Salt Lake City and they built schools and churches and they became their own little thriving community. They ended up living here for five years and for that entire time they thought they were in Utah. Oh, okay. Little off. You're really kind of close, but a little, a little off. And they discovered that they were actually in Nevada and the state of Nevada demanded that they pay five years and back taxes that they owed.

Oh, no. Yeah. And they're like, wow, that's a lot of money. So the town decided to vote if they wanted to stay or not. And the town collectively voted that instead of paying taxes, they would actually just abandon the town and dip. And they all moved to Salt Lake City instead. How many people was this? I'm not totally sure.

It sounded like there were a couple hundred people there. Yeah, they're like, okay. Okay, that was an expensive mistake and we're, I'm a head out now. They're like, peace. I'm tax evasion has not been a thing yet. I've been leaving. I got to get out of here. Yeah.

I mean, you're not prepared for that. Taxes suck. Oh my God. Don't get me started. We have recently discovered what taxes are this year and have also discovered that no one in our life has ever prepared us for taxes or what they are. business taxes. Business taxes.

So if we both go to jail for tax evasion, it's not on purpose. We're trying our best. Oh, my gosh. It's literally learning a different language. Wow. It is. Okay. Anyways, you just hit me where it hurts.

So move on from the tax situation. Yeah, so they just leave because they don't want to pay their taxes. And then around the 1880s, new settlers arrived to this area, and they discovered that the soil here was really good for farming. And there was a large group of people. I mean, the largest amount of people that were in this area was about 500 people from this settlement. And they had a school, a post office, grocery store, a church, automobile shops. You know, there was no plumbing or electricity here, but the people really seemed to enjoy it.

They reported that they really enjoyed the simpler life and this location. In 1928, President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill that authorized the creation of the Hoover Dam. This dam was intended to create a large lake, which would be Lake Mead. The lake would extend over the town of St. Thomas and the residents there were told that they had to leave. The government offered to reimburse them for their property and everyone in the town left. Except for one person. Hugh Lord stayed at his home up until the water started to fill his property. And when he finally left, he had to paddle away in a canoe with his belonging. What?

Yeah, he was really holding out. He's like, well, maybe it won't reach me. I don't know. And then he literally had to paddle away in a canoe. And at the end of it, when the lake was finished filling up, the town of St. Thomas was buried 60 feet below the surface. Whoa. Reminds me, that gentleman reminds me of Harry Truman. Yeah, he's like, I'm not going.

Yep, stay until the very end. Mm-hmm. He lived and he moved on to wherever. But with the temperatures and the droughts of this area, the lake started to receive after just a few years. And the town actually came back to the surface several times over the years. It was able to be seen again in 1945, then again in 1963, and then again in 2012. And it has actually been exposed completely ever since. Oh, yeah.

So it's there now. You can visit it. I was just going to ask, is it somewhere you can dive to? Nope. You can walk there. You can walk there. You don't even have to swim. You can walk. And families of old former residents have visited the areas. There's still remnants of the old buildings that you can see today. And you can take a hike there. It's a two mile loop on the St. Thomas Trail on the app, all trails, which I use like religiously. It's rated as moderate and the hike is relatively flat. Wow. Is there any spooky stuff there? You know, not particularly to this exact location, but Lake Mead has been no stranger to death and tragedy. From 2006 to 2016, 275 people have died within the park. And the largest amount of deaths are due to drownings because it's a lake.

But this has made Lake Mead the deadliest national park in the United States. I do remember reading that, like statistically. not statistically wise, right? Because I think that's the North Cascades, if you break it down statistically, but like where you are actually most likely to die. Right? Or am I saying that wrong? I don't know. I think North Cascades is up there. Everything I read to this is the most deadliest and compared to the amount of visitors.

I can imagine, just like you said, because of all the accidents on the water. Yeah. And it said some where exposure a lot are due to accidents. incidents on the water. And this abandoned town that I had talked about previously isn't the only thing that has been left at the bottom of Lake Mead, even though the town is exposed now. On July 21st, 1948, there was a B-9 super fortress that was flying over conducting research. And this plane was a four-engine heavy bomber plane that had been created to be used for science after World War II. So these planes were mostly known for going into World War II and dropping bombs and missiles and things like that.

This plane in particular was created for research because they were trying to find better ways to essentially drop bombs and have better technology while they're out at war. And around like me, there's a lot of military areas. So it's pretty common for different planes and aircrafts to fly over the, lake. On this day, they were conducting altitude research over the lake and the pilot was flying around 400 feet above the lake surface. But the alt meter wasn't working correctly. And at 1230 p.m. that day, the B29 struck the water going 230 miles per hour. And at the initial crash, it actually skipped into the water for another half of a mile. That is so frightening. Terrifying. But all five people on the plane were able to escape and they were rescued what going 200 and something miles

well I guess it's like a skipping stone on the surface of the water instead of just plummeting right directly in and they climbed out one of them had a broken arm but other than that they were fine they got rescued and after that the plane sunk to the bottom of Lake Mead it's still there today and because of the temperatures and the depth of the plane, it's extremely well preserved and divers have been able to go down and see it almost completely intact. I feel like I need to get into underwater archaeology. It's so cool. After our episode we did last month for Patreon, I just, I don't know. It just seems so this is just something that I'm probably never going to fulfill.

So I don't even know why I'm talking about it. But like it just seems so cool. Because like you said, the water just has a way of preserving things in some situations that you can't see a lot of times with archaeology on land. Yeah. It's definitely an interesting field to get into. I am not particularly swimming. Like I'm afraid of drowning.

And I feel like I just wouldn't do well. So it's not for me, but I really like looking at the pictures. So if you do do it, bring a GoPro or something. Okay, great for me. Okay, but you'll jump out of a plane. Yeah, that's way less scary to me. But there's no hope of surviving if you fall out of a plane. But there's not like water crushing me.

I guess they're not great either way. It sucks. Anyway, these are my ghost town stories. I feel, sorry, I feel like we've gotten off track a lot this episode. People are going to be like, shut up. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing the ghost story. I mean, towns, ghost towns.

Yeah, they're super interesting. There's a lot of stories behind them. They're all accessible. You can visit each one of these. If you've been there, send us some pictures, tell us your experience because they sound really interesting. Especially the Rangel St. Elias one. Yeah, that one's like, talk. of the list got to go.

That's really cool. I'm glad that you did it because I know you were toying around with doing it around Halloween and I'm glad you waited because I liked it more so because it wasn't like super paranormal focused. It's interesting in and of itself without an added like spooky factor. Yeah, it just has so many definitely some of the spooky factors are in there. But just the stories that these towns holds are so interesting. and cool and they're in beautiful areas too it's just a good reason to go outside awesome well thanks

for sharing yeah well that's everything i have for this week thank you everyone so much for joining us we will see you next week but in the meantime enjoy the view but watch you're back bye bye thank you for joining us again this week if you have a trail tale you'd like to share send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Become an outsider by joining our Patreon where you'll gain access to monthly bonus stories and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our partners, you're supporting our show. To access our special discount codes along with source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For information on the show,

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