There are abandoned communities all over America that have spine-chilling histories. From long-forgotten Wild West mining towns and former resorts to road trip pit stops and railroad hubs, these seriously spooky towns are sure to give you the heebie-jeebies...

Tucked away in the breathtaking Big Smoky Valley, Manhattan witnessed a silver mining boom in the mid-1860s and another population growth in the early 1900s. The number of residents rose to 4,000 and the town established its own business district with different shops, a telephone service and electric lights. Another mining boom in 1909 lasted into the 1940s, only to cease in 1947 driving people to move elsewhere. 

Although gold is still prevalent in the area, mining continues just 10 miles (16km) from Manhattan on a small scale. With 125 people residing in the town today, Manhattan refers to itself as a living ghost town. If you ever pass the small village, make sure to visit its only remaining establishment, The Manhattan Bar & Motel. 

Cerro Gordo was privately owned until June 2018 when it was put up for sale and sold for £1.1 million ($1.4m) to two Los Angeles entrepreneurs. They plan to keep it opened to public and preserve the existing buildings and their interiors.

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In its heyday, the town had 13 saloons, four hotels, two barbershops, a doctor's office and a school as well as a daily stagecoach route to nearby towns. Garnet was a lively mining town from the 1860s when prospectors discovered gold and semi-precious red gems in the area. Unfortunately, half the town burned down in 1912 and, as the mines were running out of gold anyway, it was abandoned. 

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Swarming with miners hopeful for gold in the late 1800s, the town's bustling life didn't last long as the mines were dried up by the 1989. The town was renamed Youngsberg in 1921 to try and bring its population back up, however, it was abandoned again in 1926.

A once-booming Mississippi River port town, Cairo has become a scary ghost town. The town boomed along with the steamboat industry, however, it's been on the decline ever since. Today, a walk through the main street is eerily quiet with most buildings boarded up and businesses shut.

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Around 120 miles (193km) northwest of Las Vegas, high in the Bullfrog Hills, is Nevada’s best-known Gold Rush ghost town, Rhyolite. Founded in 1905, it was one of several mining camps that popped up around the edges of the Death Valley as thousands of miners and prospectors arrived in the region following a gold discovery. But several crises led to the downfall of Rhyolite: the 1907 San Francisco earthquake and a financial panic later that same year both made it too expensive to prospect gold. By the end of 1910, the mine was operating at a loss and it closed in 1911.

Today it’s one of the most-photographed ghost towns in America. Ruins include a railroad depot and the Bottle House, which has thousands of bottles embedded into its walls like a mosaic. The town has also served as a set for several Hollywood pictures like The Island and Six String Samurai. About a dozen buildings or remnants are still standing, including a general store, bank, jail and train station (pictured), and it’s possible to wander in and around most of them.

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The train depot is now a museum and a visitors' centre for travellers who come to raft on the New River Gorge National River. However, Thurmond is an eerie throwback to what American towns used to look like in the past and an unsettling reminder of how fleeting prosperity can be.

Kennecott was never really a town, but more a mining camp in southeast Alaska. In 1901 mining students spent months sampling the soil and digging around Kennicott Glacier before determining it was possibly the richest copper site in the world. Between 1909 and 1938 Kennecott mines produced over 4.6 million tonnes of ore that contained £1.2 billion ($1.55bn) of copper. But by the late 1930s the mines were depleted and the facilities abandoned. It has been a national park since.

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Over time, the mines became too expensive to run and in 1932 a huge fire burned 90% of the town to the ground. The 200 buildings that remain are now preserved as ruins – tables are still laid with crockery and in the school, books lie scattered on desks. Visitors aren’t allowed inside the houses and the church, but there are usually daily tours of the old stamp mill where you'll learn how the ore was crushed so gold could be extracted and turned into bullion bars.

About an hour's drive west off the Loneliest Road in America Belmont Mill remains a well-preserved ghost down from the country’s mining boom. Established as a company town in the 1890s with financial backing by the Tonopah-Belmont Development Company, the constructed mines weren’t as profitable as expected. This caused operations to shut down within a few years and people to move to other neighbouring towns.

Although it didn’t live long as a town, Belmont Mill’s remains are mostly intact and even its historic tramline can still be visited. Visitors can also explore historic miner cabins, machinery and old cars. 

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