February 20, 2025 • 20 mins
Abandoned towns are scattered throughout the American Landscape.
These remnants of bygone eras tempt us to speculate about the lives of those that left …
Why did they leave?
What makes the American West particularly populated with these so-called “Ghost Towns?”
Noodles and I explore the desolate ghost town of Grafton - just south of Zion National Park - to find out!
Recommendations:
Good reference before visiting Grafton, the detour shouldn't take you more than two hours:
https://graftonheritage.org/history-settlement/
Zion Hikes:
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/utah/the-zion-narrows-riverside-walk
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/utah/angels-landing-trail
Don't Forget Utah's Mighty 5 (easily doable if you plan!)
https://www.visitutah.com/places-to-go/parks-outdoors/the-mighty-5
Works Cited:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20589495?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/24889487.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A69f9058b1c2537ad4427f269f32fac60&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&initiator=&acceptTC=1
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41784569?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44671309?searchText=ghost+towns&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dghost%2Btowns%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Aa083d002fc7d91c16babbaf915c2cd7d&seq=2
https://graftonheritage.org/history-settlement/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/ghost-town
https://travel.usnews.com/gallery/americas-15-coolest-ghost-towns-to-visit?slide=16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7G2DRrxbtE
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/gt-hiddentales/
Noah and Noodles here!
We want to extend a heartfelt thanks to every listener of Backroad Odyssey.
Your support fuels our passion and inspires us to keep sharing stories and discover overlooked locations.
Follow each adventure visually at:
https://www.instagram.com/backroadsodyssey/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cruisin' down the street.
I wonder where this road wouldlead.
So many possibilities.
Care to share what you think.
Oh, noon Dolls, what do you see?
Back Road, odyssey road on itsseat?
(00:30):
Abandoned towns are scatteredthroughout the American
landscape.
These remnants of bygone erastempt us to speculate about the
lives of those that left.
Why did they leave that left?
Why did they leave?
And what makes the AmericanWest particularly populated with
(00:51):
these so-called ghost towns?
To find out, my dog Noodles andI take the van to the desolate
ghost town of Grafton, justsouth of Zion National Park.
The paved road to Grafton justended.
We're driving now the dirt roadto a place people once called
home, but that was then, andthis is now Now.
The only evidence of activityaround Grafton are the vacant
(01:15):
buildings scattered throughoutthe sparse landscape we're
headed to.
We'll start with two questions.
One, we all have an image inour head of the quintessential
American ghost town, but howmuch do we really know about the
reasons behind the abandonmentof all of these towns?
And two, as always, we have tostart somewhere.
(01:38):
What is a ghost town?
The air here tastes ofsparseness and the graveyard
(02:05):
stones are undecorated.
Charles Tomlinson Two Views ofTwo Ghost Towns.
At its most basic, the ghosttown is an abandoned settlement
that still possesses visibleinfrastructure, tangible remains
, echoes of life being lived.
These ambiguous remnants couldbe anything from once thriving
(02:28):
industrial hubs to solitarymining outposts.
Whatever the exact reason forits abandonment, a common thread
weaves through the stories ofevery single American ghost town
, and that is this All economicactivity that, once sustained,
the town ceases to exist.
(02:48):
What's going just stopsWestward, ever westward.
Henry Wells Ghost towns havebecome synonymous with
imaginings of the American West.
Why, what's the deal in thisspace at this time?
(03:12):
Throughout the 19th century,america was largely guided by
the following collection ofwords Expansion, growth, further
Expansion.
From the 30s and 40s onwards,there was a general awareness in
America of the vastness of thisnew, dubiously acquired, I'll
(03:36):
add land and a sharp sense ofthe potential of this land for
its well, its possiblepopulation growth, its general
opportunity.
This awareness prompted abreakneck pace of westward
expansion for decades upondecades, because we all know you
(03:56):
weren't the only one eyeingopportunities out west.
No, it was fair game.
If you head West, theexpectation became, you can
strike it rich, you can findcheap land, you can do what you
otherwise could not where youcurrently lived, and some met
success, but most did not.
(04:20):
This aggressive expansionistmentality provoked a
boom-or-bust cycle.
Entire towns were being builtwith little to no regard for
their long-term survival.
In some cases they left soquickly that they left the dirty
dishes on the table.
Author Kenneth Jessen.
(04:42):
So I'll ask again what are thespecific reasons for leaving a
perfectly good town?
We just explored one?
Rapid westward expansion.
New town populations would growquickly and decline quicker as
opportunities arose elsewhere.
We've covered that, so we'll goto reason two Flimsy economic
(05:06):
foundations.
Many ghost towns wereestablished around valuable but
limited resources.
When this limited valuableresource gold, coal, what have
you was depleted, the town'sentire economic foundation just
basically collapsed.
They had nothing else going forthem.
(05:26):
Don't put all your eggs in onebasket, as they say.
Let's move on to reason threeLack of basic infrastructure.
These towns were often hastilycreated and often in the middle
of nowhere, so infrastructurethat would otherwise aid in
steady population growth didn'texist, was too expensive or flat
(05:50):
out not possible to implement.
Kind of going off this.
The 1800s are synonymous withchange.
Newer, faster railroads wereconstantly created.
Resource pipelines to townswere altered.
It was just unpredictable.
So you could establish a townon a well-traveled route and
(06:13):
that very same route would notbe well-traveled within a decade
.
Finally, your basic naturaldisasters could damage towns to
the point where it simply wasn'tworth taking the time and the
resources to repair everything.
What's in common with everyreason we've mentioned is this
(06:35):
the cost of staying mentally,financially, socially, was all
around just too high.
Best, most thought to leave andto cut your losses and find
fortunes elsewhere.
It was easy enough to do soWestward, ever westward.
(06:56):
Take care to sell your horsebefore he dies.
The art of life is passinglosses on.
Robert Frost, what starts as aprairie becomes a boomtown and
(07:22):
once again returns to prairie.
Such is the story of hundredsof abandoned towns in the fate
of our destination today Grafton, utah.
Well, here we are, noodles and Iare walking down what I can
(07:43):
only assume is Main Street.
There's only one street.
A building to my left served assimultaneously a church, a
school and a town hall.
Both ahead and behind me aresimilarly sized buildings.
I've got to say before I sayanything, it's beautiful.
Here Again, we're at the borderof Zion, so aesthetically I
(08:04):
absolutely see why you'd settlehere.
The red rock mountains, theblue sky, unique landscapes.
The Red Rock Mountains, theblue sky, unique landscapes, but
aesthetics I'd imagine were lowon the list in the city
planning of 19th century America.
There, then, were mostdefinitely other reasons to
settle in Grafton, and, believeyou me, we are going to find out
(08:29):
what they are.
But before we do, we're goingto ask ourselves one other
question.
Behind every abandoned church,slash, school, slash town hall,
there's a very human story.
Choices were made, desireschased to make them, brick by
brick, panel by panel, and nowthey're empty.
(08:51):
They're solitary buildings.
Does this building's laterabandonment cheapen the effort
put into constructing it?
Or is the act of trying tobuild something noble in itself?
I wonder what was going throughthe minds of the population of
(09:12):
Grafton as they left their homesbehind.
The story of Grafton is actuallyquite unique in the long list
of the tales of American ghosttowns.
To start, where most ghosttowns started, as mining towns,
basically settlements builtalongside mineral deposits,
(09:35):
grafton was founded forreligious reasons and serves as
a rare example of anagricultural ghost town.
To understand, we need context.
Let's go back in time.
The year is 1847.
A group of weary pioneers standat Emigration Canyon looking
(09:57):
out at the valley of the GreatSalt Lake.
These are the Mormons and thecity they establish in that
valley and eventual dispersal ofMormons and Mormon thought lead
directly to our little townthat couldn't, grafton.
Here is how, between 1847 and1900, mormons established a
(10:21):
series of some 500 towns in abid to claim territory and to
secure resources forself-sufficiency.
They wanted to cut themselvesoff.
Grafton was one of these towns.
In 1859, nathan Tenney leadsfive families to a site one mile
(10:41):
downstream of today's Grafton.
We'll call it Pre-Grafton.
The idea in establishingPre-Grafton and the remaining
499 towns is to grow both cottonand crops for eating.
But importantly, I should addthis it was and remains a desert
(11:07):
.
So attempted farming around thenewly established pre-Grafton
was hard, thankless and oftendidn't work.
And all of this thankless workwas soon wiped away by disaster.
The houses in Old Grafton camefloating down with the furniture
(11:31):
, clothing and other property ofthe inhabitants, some of which
was hauled out of the water,including three barrels of
molasses, a resident and witnessof a nearby town.
From no water to too much water, life's wild.
In 1862, a raging flooddestroys Pre-Grafton.
(11:55):
The few living there are forcedto relocate to higher ground
one mile upstream, and this iswhere the current town site now
stands.
We'll call it Grafton.
Still here at Grafton it wasthe same story Hard, thankless
work in the desert In 1866,grafton becomes a ghost town for
(12:19):
the first time.
I'll repeat that, for the firsttime.
Here's what happened.
Many settlers routinelydisregarded territory inhabited
by the southern Paiute people,and when already scarce
resources are challenged,conflict is inevitable After
killings on both sides.
(12:40):
Brigham Young, the leader ofthe Mormons at the time and
former governor of the UtahTerritory that's a story for
another day.
Orders villages in southernUtah, where Grafton is to
coalesce into towns of at least150 people, and Grafton didn't
nearly have that much.
So the town is simply abandoned.
(13:03):
Time passes, the order isrevoked, People begin to trickle
back down into Grafton At itspeak, something like 200 people
live in the town.
But hard work and stubbornnesscan only get you so far when
(13:26):
your surroundings are simplyagainst you.
Years pass and limitedirrigation, poor climate, lack
of infrastructure all pushpeople away slowly but
inevitably.
People away slowly butinevitably.
(13:48):
In 1944, the last residentsleave Grafton, leaving behind
not only the shells of buildingsonce inhabited but a long and a
rich history of people tryingto make it work.
I'm inside what's called theRussell home right now.
It's right alongside the church, slash school slash townhouse.
You can tell it's been repairedon the outside and the inside,
(14:10):
but the spirit, the generalfeeling you get while walking
inside and on Main Street forthat matter remains the same.
You know, I used to photographhouses for a living and I always
had to go into empty houses,and the feeling is a little
similar here.
You know, you feel like you'reintruding inside something
(14:32):
that's not yours, like theowners of this house could walk
in at any moment.
But now you know, I know, youknow that's not the case.
No one's called this home inalmost a century.
And I know, again it's onlybrick and lumber that I'm
walking through, but again itjust feels significant.
(14:54):
It's a place that was cherished, that was lived in, it was a
home.
On the surface, ghost towns areabandoned buildings, nothing
special.
So with that thought, let's askourselves this question why are
we so fascinated by them?
(15:15):
Why do ghost towns endure inthe public imagination?
We're back on the dirt road,only this time we're heading
away from Grafton.
Here's some questions I've beenasking myself over and over
since we first started walkingthe main street of Grafton.
(15:36):
Why should you or I take thetime to visit a town that
everybody chose to leave,everyone left.
What do we have to gain byvisiting?
Here's my shot at an answer.
Ghost towns, for all their darkallure, all their mystery, are,
at their core, kind of echoes ofour most basic wants and
(16:00):
desires the need for community,for security, for comfort.
Maybe what fascinates us mostabout ghost towns is kind of the
ripping apart of that desire,of those desires, desires.
(16:22):
Stopping to witness peopletrying to make it and failing
long ago, reminds us just howeasily everything can be taken
away.
Maybe, then, to visit a ghosttown is to learn to love and
appreciate what we have at thistime, in this moment that's.
I don't know.
That's my shot at an answer.
But now, with Grafton fadingback into the landscape, I can
(16:42):
only imagine the families ofGrafton looking back, but where
I'm a visitor right now, theywere driving away from their
lives, from their homes, hopes,dreams.
It's a scene that was all toocommon out here in the American
West.
In one sense, american ghosttowns are remnants of greed,
(17:07):
right Claim land, grab resources, deplete those resources and go
on.
But Grafton illustrates another, a more complex side to the
making and the creation ofAmerica's ghost towns.
At some times and in some cases, there would be religious
reasons, agricultural reasons,familial reasons, natural
(17:30):
disasters would strike humanfactors, life factors would
happen.
All of this influences yourdecision to move to a town and
then to move away.
We asked ourselves at thebeginning a simple question what
is a ghost town?
We know by now, and I hope youagree, that they're more than
(17:53):
just empty buildings.
So let me venture at an answer.
Empty buildings, so let meventure at an answer.
Ghost towns.
From Grafton to the 4,000 plusadditional abandoned towns in
the United States are lettersfrom the past, letters both
encouraging ambition and warningagainst greed, promoting risk
(18:18):
and cautioning against it,embracing both what we can build
together and lose together.
At the end of this, going toGrafton, all the research, I
know one thing for sure theserelics, these letters, they're
(18:39):
worth taking the time to read.
It's Noah here.
(19:02):
Thank you for listening toBackroad Odyssey.
Let's get right intorecommendations.
Grafton is something like a15-minute drive from Zion
National Park, absolutely worthyour time.
If you're in the area Shouldn'tbe more than an hour and a half
detour for you.
Zion is an absolute must whileyou're there.
It's gorgeous just to drivearound the park, but if you like
(19:24):
to hike, it's one of the mostunique landscapes.
To do so, I'll include links inthe show notes to Angel's
Landing and the Narrows and aquick little behind the scenes
of this episode.
So the very night after Irecorded the on-location
recordings at Grafton, I got tomy campsite in the desert and
quickly became the sickest I'veever been in my life for two
(19:47):
days straight without heat.
I was freezing, cold, ran outof propane.
So, yeah, I didn't explore muchas I usually would.
I was preoccupied.
But beyond that I'll say thisIf you're going to Zion, please,
please, please considerchecking out the rest of Utah's
Mighty Five, basically fiveamazing national parks in
(20:10):
southern Utah, right next toeach other.
You've got Arches, you've gotCanyonlands, capitol Reef Check
out our Capitol Reef petroglyphepisode if you're curious.
Bryce Canyon and, of course,zion Really close together,
really doable if you plan itright.
With that said, if you findvalue in the effort that we put
into each episode, into visitingthe locations, doing the
(20:33):
research it helps us continue todo what we're doing.
If you rate and review whereveryou're listening now, always
genuinely appreciate it on myside.
Thank you, be good to eachother.
Where to next?
Backroad Odyssey.
Cruisin' down the street.
I wonder where this road wouldlead.
So many possibilities.
Care to share what you think.
Oh, noon Dolls, what do you see?
Back Road, odyssey road on itsseat?
(00:30):
Abandoned towns are scatteredthroughout the American
landscape.
These remnants of bygone erastempt us to speculate about the
lives of those that left.
Why did they leave that left?
Why did they leave?
And what makes the AmericanWest particularly populated with
(00:51):
these so-called ghost towns?
To find out, my dog Noodles andI take the van to the desolate
ghost town of Grafton, justsouth of Zion National Park.
The paved road to Grafton justended.
We're driving now the dirt roadto a place people once called
home, but that was then, andthis is now Now.
The only evidence of activityaround Grafton are the vacant
(01:15):
buildings scattered throughoutthe sparse landscape we're
headed to.
We'll start with two questions.
One, we all have an image inour head of the quintessential
American ghost town, but howmuch do we really know about the
reasons behind the abandonmentof all of these towns?
And two, as always, we have tostart somewhere.
(01:38):
What is a ghost town?
The air here tastes ofsparseness and the graveyard
(02:05):
stones are undecorated.
Charles Tomlinson Two Views ofTwo Ghost Towns.
At its most basic, the ghosttown is an abandoned settlement
that still possesses visibleinfrastructure, tangible remains
, echoes of life being lived.
These ambiguous remnants couldbe anything from once thriving
(02:28):
industrial hubs to solitarymining outposts.
Whatever the exact reason forits abandonment, a common thread
weaves through the stories ofevery single American ghost town
, and that is this All economicactivity that, once sustained,
the town ceases to exist.
(02:48):
What's going just stopsWestward, ever westward.
Henry Wells Ghost towns havebecome synonymous with
imaginings of the American West.
Why, what's the deal in thisspace at this time?
(03:12):
Throughout the 19th century,america was largely guided by
the following collection ofwords Expansion, growth, further
Expansion.
From the 30s and 40s onwards,there was a general awareness in
America of the vastness of thisnew, dubiously acquired, I'll
(03:36):
add land and a sharp sense ofthe potential of this land for
its well, its possiblepopulation growth, its general
opportunity.
This awareness prompted abreakneck pace of westward
expansion for decades upondecades, because we all know you
(03:56):
weren't the only one eyeingopportunities out west.
No, it was fair game.
If you head West, theexpectation became, you can
strike it rich, you can findcheap land, you can do what you
otherwise could not where youcurrently lived, and some met
success, but most did not.
(04:20):
This aggressive expansionistmentality provoked a
boom-or-bust cycle.
Entire towns were being builtwith little to no regard for
their long-term survival.
In some cases they left soquickly that they left the dirty
dishes on the table.
Author Kenneth Jessen.
(04:42):
So I'll ask again what are thespecific reasons for leaving a
perfectly good town?
We just explored one?
Rapid westward expansion.
New town populations would growquickly and decline quicker as
opportunities arose elsewhere.
We've covered that, so we'll goto reason two Flimsy economic
(05:06):
foundations.
Many ghost towns wereestablished around valuable but
limited resources.
When this limited valuableresource gold, coal, what have
you was depleted, the town'sentire economic foundation just
basically collapsed.
They had nothing else going forthem.
(05:26):
Don't put all your eggs in onebasket, as they say.
Let's move on to reason threeLack of basic infrastructure.
These towns were often hastilycreated and often in the middle
of nowhere, so infrastructurethat would otherwise aid in
steady population growth didn'texist, was too expensive or flat
(05:50):
out not possible to implement.
Kind of going off this.
The 1800s are synonymous withchange.
Newer, faster railroads wereconstantly created.
Resource pipelines to townswere altered.
It was just unpredictable.
So you could establish a townon a well-traveled route and
(06:13):
that very same route would notbe well-traveled within a decade
.
Finally, your basic naturaldisasters could damage towns to
the point where it simply wasn'tworth taking the time and the
resources to repair everything.
What's in common with everyreason we've mentioned is this
(06:35):
the cost of staying mentally,financially, socially, was all
around just too high.
Best, most thought to leave andto cut your losses and find
fortunes elsewhere.
It was easy enough to do soWestward, ever westward.
(06:56):
Take care to sell your horsebefore he dies.
The art of life is passinglosses on.
Robert Frost, what starts as aprairie becomes a boomtown and
(07:22):
once again returns to prairie.
Such is the story of hundredsof abandoned towns in the fate
of our destination today Grafton, utah.
Well, here we are, noodles and Iare walking down what I can
(07:43):
only assume is Main Street.
There's only one street.
A building to my left served assimultaneously a church, a
school and a town hall.
Both ahead and behind me aresimilarly sized buildings.
I've got to say before I sayanything, it's beautiful.
Here Again, we're at the borderof Zion, so aesthetically I
(08:04):
absolutely see why you'd settlehere.
The red rock mountains, theblue sky, unique landscapes.
The Red Rock Mountains, theblue sky, unique landscapes, but
aesthetics I'd imagine were lowon the list in the city
planning of 19th century America.
There, then, were mostdefinitely other reasons to
settle in Grafton, and, believeyou me, we are going to find out
(08:29):
what they are.
But before we do, we're goingto ask ourselves one other
question.
Behind every abandoned church,slash, school, slash town hall,
there's a very human story.
Choices were made, desireschased to make them, brick by
brick, panel by panel, and nowthey're empty.
(08:51):
They're solitary buildings.
Does this building's laterabandonment cheapen the effort
put into constructing it?
Or is the act of trying tobuild something noble in itself?
I wonder what was going throughthe minds of the population of
(09:12):
Grafton as they left their homesbehind.
The story of Grafton is actuallyquite unique in the long list
of the tales of American ghosttowns.
To start, where most ghosttowns started, as mining towns,
basically settlements builtalongside mineral deposits,
(09:35):
grafton was founded forreligious reasons and serves as
a rare example of anagricultural ghost town.
To understand, we need context.
Let's go back in time.
The year is 1847.
A group of weary pioneers standat Emigration Canyon looking
(09:57):
out at the valley of the GreatSalt Lake.
These are the Mormons and thecity they establish in that
valley and eventual dispersal ofMormons and Mormon thought lead
directly to our little townthat couldn't, grafton.
Here is how, between 1847 and1900, mormons established a
(10:21):
series of some 500 towns in abid to claim territory and to
secure resources forself-sufficiency.
They wanted to cut themselvesoff.
Grafton was one of these towns.
In 1859, nathan Tenney leadsfive families to a site one mile
(10:41):
downstream of today's Grafton.
We'll call it Pre-Grafton.
The idea in establishingPre-Grafton and the remaining
499 towns is to grow both cottonand crops for eating.
But importantly, I should addthis it was and remains a desert
(11:07):
.
So attempted farming around thenewly established pre-Grafton
was hard, thankless and oftendidn't work.
And all of this thankless workwas soon wiped away by disaster.
The houses in Old Grafton camefloating down with the furniture
(11:31):
, clothing and other property ofthe inhabitants, some of which
was hauled out of the water,including three barrels of
molasses, a resident and witnessof a nearby town.
From no water to too much water, life's wild.
In 1862, a raging flooddestroys Pre-Grafton.
(11:55):
The few living there are forcedto relocate to higher ground
one mile upstream, and this iswhere the current town site now
stands.
We'll call it Grafton.
Still here at Grafton it wasthe same story Hard, thankless
work in the desert In 1866,grafton becomes a ghost town for
(12:19):
the first time.
I'll repeat that, for the firsttime.
Here's what happened.
Many settlers routinelydisregarded territory inhabited
by the southern Paiute people,and when already scarce
resources are challenged,conflict is inevitable After
killings on both sides.
(12:40):
Brigham Young, the leader ofthe Mormons at the time and
former governor of the UtahTerritory that's a story for
another day.
Orders villages in southernUtah, where Grafton is to
coalesce into towns of at least150 people, and Grafton didn't
nearly have that much.
So the town is simply abandoned.
(13:03):
Time passes, the order isrevoked, People begin to trickle
back down into Grafton At itspeak, something like 200 people
live in the town.
But hard work and stubbornnesscan only get you so far when
(13:26):
your surroundings are simplyagainst you.
Years pass and limitedirrigation, poor climate, lack
of infrastructure all pushpeople away slowly but
inevitably.
People away slowly butinevitably.
(13:48):
In 1944, the last residentsleave Grafton, leaving behind
not only the shells of buildingsonce inhabited but a long and a
rich history of people tryingto make it work.
I'm inside what's called theRussell home right now.
It's right alongside the church, slash school slash townhouse.
You can tell it's been repairedon the outside and the inside,
(14:10):
but the spirit, the generalfeeling you get while walking
inside and on Main Street forthat matter remains the same.
You know, I used to photographhouses for a living and I always
had to go into empty houses,and the feeling is a little
similar here.
You know, you feel like you'reintruding inside something
(14:32):
that's not yours, like theowners of this house could walk
in at any moment.
But now you know, I know, youknow that's not the case.
No one's called this home inalmost a century.
And I know, again it's onlybrick and lumber that I'm
walking through, but again itjust feels significant.
(14:54):
It's a place that was cherished, that was lived in, it was a
home.
On the surface, ghost towns areabandoned buildings, nothing
special.
So with that thought, let's askourselves this question why are
we so fascinated by them?
(15:15):
Why do ghost towns endure inthe public imagination?
We're back on the dirt road,only this time we're heading
away from Grafton.
Here's some questions I've beenasking myself over and over
since we first started walkingthe main street of Grafton.
(15:36):
Why should you or I take thetime to visit a town that
everybody chose to leave,everyone left.
What do we have to gain byvisiting?
Here's my shot at an answer.
Ghost towns, for all their darkallure, all their mystery, are,
at their core, kind of echoes ofour most basic wants and
(16:00):
desires the need for community,for security, for comfort.
Maybe what fascinates us mostabout ghost towns is kind of the
ripping apart of that desire,of those desires, desires.
(16:22):
Stopping to witness peopletrying to make it and failing
long ago, reminds us just howeasily everything can be taken
away.
Maybe, then, to visit a ghosttown is to learn to love and
appreciate what we have at thistime, in this moment that's.
I don't know.
That's my shot at an answer.
But now, with Grafton fadingback into the landscape, I can
(16:42):
only imagine the families ofGrafton looking back, but where
I'm a visitor right now, theywere driving away from their
lives, from their homes, hopes,dreams.
It's a scene that was all toocommon out here in the American
West.
In one sense, american ghosttowns are remnants of greed,
(17:07):
right Claim land, grab resources, deplete those resources and go
on.
But Grafton illustrates another, a more complex side to the
making and the creation ofAmerica's ghost towns.
At some times and in some cases, there would be religious
reasons, agricultural reasons,familial reasons, natural
(17:30):
disasters would strike humanfactors, life factors would
happen.
All of this influences yourdecision to move to a town and
then to move away.
We asked ourselves at thebeginning a simple question what
is a ghost town?
We know by now, and I hope youagree, that they're more than
(17:53):
just empty buildings.
So let me venture at an answer.
Empty buildings, so let meventure at an answer.
Ghost towns.
From Grafton to the 4,000 plusadditional abandoned towns in
the United States are lettersfrom the past, letters both
encouraging ambition and warningagainst greed, promoting risk
(18:18):
and cautioning against it,embracing both what we can build
together and lose together.
At the end of this, going toGrafton, all the research, I
know one thing for sure theserelics, these letters, they're
(18:39):
worth taking the time to read.
It's Noah here.
(19:02):
Thank you for listening toBackroad Odyssey.
Let's get right intorecommendations.
Grafton is something like a15-minute drive from Zion
National Park, absolutely worthyour time.
If you're in the area Shouldn'tbe more than an hour and a half
detour for you.
Zion is an absolute must whileyou're there.
It's gorgeous just to drivearound the park, but if you like
(19:24):
to hike, it's one of the mostunique landscapes.
To do so, I'll include links inthe show notes to Angel's
Landing and the Narrows and aquick little behind the scenes
of this episode.
So the very night after Irecorded the on-location
recordings at Grafton, I got tomy campsite in the desert and
quickly became the sickest I'veever been in my life for two
(19:47):
days straight without heat.
I was freezing, cold, ran outof propane.
So, yeah, I didn't explore muchas I usually would.
I was preoccupied.
But beyond that I'll say thisIf you're going to Zion, please,
please, please considerchecking out the rest of Utah's
Mighty Five, basically fiveamazing national parks in
(20:10):
southern Utah, right next toeach other.
You've got Arches, you've gotCanyonlands, capitol Reef Check
out our Capitol Reef petroglyphepisode if you're curious.
Bryce Canyon and, of course,zion Really close together,
really doable if you plan itright.
With that said, if you findvalue in the effort that we put
into each episode, into visitingthe locations, doing the
(20:33):
research it helps us continue todo what we're doing.
If you rate and review whereveryou're listening now, always
genuinely appreciate it on myside.
Thank you, be good to eachother.
Where to next?
Backroad Odyssey.
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