In some Old West ghost town, there’s a new sheriff: a realtor. They are looking for an opportunity to argue with buyers.
There are many reasons why someone would want to own an entire town, even one with no population or infrastructure. Some buyers may be attracted by the romanticism of owning a piece of history, while others are simply looking to expand their portfolio, and there are more practical types looking to develop the land for their own use.
Of course, what these towns themselves have in common is that they are all abandoned. Depending on a number of factors, they can range in price, some into the millions of dollars.
There may not be a site like Zillow that specifically lists ghost towns for sale, but if you look around, you’ll see more of them coming to market than you might think.
Here are five such examples:
Neptune, California
Adult circus Spiegelworld, led by Australian founder Ross Mollison, has bought the 80-acre town of Nipton for $2.5 million with a vision for a “circus village” “.
Morrison’s World of Spiegels is best known for its “Absinthe” show in a tent at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. It also operates “Atomic Saloon” and “Opium” in Las Vegas, and “Hook” in Atlanta. Its programming has been described as “riot”, “rough” and “rough”.
Neptune had been owned by a California couple for decades before Morrison and his jugglers came along. Jerry Freeman surprised his wife Roxanne Lang when he bought the town for $200,000 in the early 1980s. Long began selling the property after Freeman’s death in 2016, first closing a $5 million deal with Phoenix-based cannabis company American Green in 2017.
Cerro Gordo, California
The abandoned mining town of Cerro Gordo, 200 miles from Los Angeles, sold in 2018 to a group of eight Los Angeles-based investors for $1 million to $1.5 million, up about $925,000 on the asking price. 40%.
The buyers were hospitality entrepreneur and bestselling author Brent Underwood and Jon Bier, who runs a boutique PR firm. Underwood declined to comment on specific prices.
At the time of the sale, the 360-acre town consisted of 22 buildings totaling 24,000 square feet, including a historic hotel, sheds, saloon, church and museum. Once known for producing most of the silver and lead in Los Angeles, the town epitomized the Wild West. For a while there was one murder a week there.
Underwood is stuck there in 2021, adding a colorful history to the town, According to the Travel Channel. He said at the time that his goal was to renovate the building in town and continue living there.
Wolfe, Texas
Alexander Bardoff, who bought Lobo with a group of friends in 2001 for $20,000, recently announced he was looking for someone to buy the ghost town for $100,000, provided the buyer appreciates its history. According to the Wall Street Journal.
Potential buyers have come up with all sorts of ideas for the future of Lobo, including a kangaroo farm, a nudist colony and an escape room-style attraction where people can escape town for more than just a room.
Lobo’s history dates back to the mid-1800s, when it was a stopover on the mail route from San Antonio to San Diego. The town grew over time, but after the last resident left in 1991, Lobo remained vacant until Bardolph and his friends converted it into an arts center, hosting art installations, films festivals and music performances.
The town covers 10 acres and has an empty swimming pool, a motel, grocery store and post office, all abandoned, along with vacant houses.
Bardolph said he was unwilling to sell the town to anyone.
“Do you respect what I call Lobo’s soul?” Bardoff told the Journal. “You can have a campsite anywhere.”
Cerritos, California
Some buyers are as mysterious as the ghost town itself. To wit: Earlier this year, a mysterious company called Ecology Mountain Holdings bought the ghost town of Cerritos, California, from Eagle Mountain Acquisition LLC, an affiliate of Kaiser Steel, for $22.5 million. SF door The report said.
The only public information about the buying entity is its name; the address in Cerritos, CA; and the ghost town of Eagle Mountain, CA that it bought.
Kaiser Steel is one of many companies owned and directed by Henry J. Kaiser. Henry Kaiser was a 20th-century industrialist who owned shipbuilding, healthcare, automotive, aluminum, real estate and media businesses. Today, his most notable legacy is health care giant Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser Steel closed in 1983, and the Eagle Mountain mine closed with it. The boom in blowing iron ore from the hillsides has withered.
What Ecology Mountain Holdings has in store for the town, which once housed a post office, a 350-seat rec center and a 100-student high school, remains unclear.
Pierce (Arizona)
Well, more of a building than a town, after owner Patricia Burris transformed her 127-year-old ghost town grocery store (called the Arizona Ghost Town Museum) into a one-bedroom home, Listed for $1.1 million, insider report.
Burris and her historian husband Michael bought the grocery store at 905 South Ghost Town Trail in 1996. Originally built in 1895, the 3,900-square-foot building has just one bedroom and two and a half bathrooms, according to the report. to Realtor.com.
Restoring the property was a dream of Burris, who completed the renovation in 2019 after his death, according to the outlet. The ghost town museum built by Burris features vintage appliances from the era, a still-working blacksmith shop and antique horse-drawn carriages in the garage.
It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
