fuckyeahghosttowns

Dixie Square Mall, Harvey, Illinois (submitted by Jack Hirsch)

Dixie Square Mall is an abandoned enclosed shopping mall located in Harvey, Illinois, United States. It has been abandoned for thirty years, more than twice as long as it was in business. It is famous for having been used, both inside and out, for the mall chase scene in the movie The Blues Brothers. More recently, it achieved notoriety because of a growing Internet cult following (including local urban exploration groups) dedicated to covering the mall’s deteriorating condition. Like other “dead malls”, it had been characterized by high vacancy rates and low patronage, which led to its closure. However, while other dead malls were redeveloped or demolished, Dixie Square has stood out due to its extensive neglect, vandalism damage, and history.

Abandoned office building in France (via flickr)

Abandoned barn in Round Hill, Alberta, Canada (via flickr)

Drawbridge, California (via flickr)

Drawbridge (formely known as Saline City) is located at the southern end of the San Franscisco Bay, on Station Island. It was created by the South Pacific Coast Railroad in 1876. At that time it consisted of only one small cabin for the operator of the railroad’s two drawbridges crossing Mud Creek Slough and Coyote Creek Slough to connect the nearby villages. At some point 10 passenger trains stopped there per day and people began building their homes there. Later the drawbridges were removed and some residents left the town.

Four years after the turn bridge drawbridges were removed and most of the residents had left, the San Jose Mercury News had incorrectly reported that the town was a ghost town and that the residents left valuables behind. As a result, the people still living there had their homes vandalized.The town’s last resident is said to have left in 1979. Drawbridge is now part of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge and is no longer open to the public due to restoration efforts. The only path leading into Drawbridge is the Union Pacific Railroad track.

Abandoned farmhouse in Rolette County, North Dakota (via flickr)

Fort Ord, Monterey Bay, California (via flickr)

Fort Ord was a U.S. Army post on Monterey Bay in California. It was established in 1917 as a maneuver area and field artillery target range and was closed in September 1994.

After some 77 years of military training, the base was found to be highly and widely contaminated with toxics including lead from bullets at the beach rifle training ranges, unexploded ordnance (UXO) spread across more than 10,000 acres of impact ranges and unlined landfills leaking TCE and carbon tetrachloride into ground water under residential areas, some detected in drinking water wells. This contamination finding resulted in Fort Ord’s placement on the National Priorities List, a subset of the most contaminated Superfund sites.

The subsequent cleanup was controversial soon after it started, drawing lawsuits from the Regional Air Quality protection agency and one of the three non-profits formed specifically to force the ARMY and US-EPA to adequately and responsibly clean up the toxics and explosives. The beach area, slated to become a California state park in 2009, still contains extensive lead dust which can harm children’s health with lead poisoning because 96 percent of the area was not cleaned up. (Post-Remediation Health and Ecological Risk Assessments, 2007)

While much of the old military buildings and infrastructure remain abandoned, many structures have been torn down for anticipated development. California State University Monterey Bay, along with some subdivisions, a strip mall, military facilities and a nature preserve occupy the area today.

An abandoned farm building in County Armagh, Northern Ireland (via flickr)

(via mesohorny)

An abandoned room in a military hospital in Italy (via flickr)

An abandoned farm in Kelduhverfi, Iceland (via flickr)