Minnesota’s Most Eerie Forgotten Ghost Towns

The moment your cell service drops on a quiet, dark Minnesota backroad, the whole vibe changes.

Suddenly, you spot an old building with boarded-up windows sitting off in the trees, and you feel like you've rolled right up on the set of a horror movie. You double-check that your doors are locked, maybe turn the radio up a little, and wonder what in the world happened here.

But you haven't stumbled onto a movie set. You might just be passing through one of Minnesota's forgotten ghost towns.

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When most people think of ghost towns, they picture dusty tumbleweeds and abandoned saloons. But, Minnesota has its own collection of forgotten places, too, and some have pretty fascinating stories behind them.

These used to be booming towns, so what actually happened to there?

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Elcor

Elcor was inhabited between 1897 and 1956. It was built on the Mesabi Iron Range near the city of Gilbert in St. Louis County, according to Wikipedia. 

It once was a mining location, built by the mining company to house the workers for its mines. People were allowed to own their homes, but the land on which the houses stood belonged to the mining company.

Also See: Would You Stay in Minnesota's Famous Haunted Airbnb?

After the Corsica mine closed in 1954, the residents were ordered to vacate the property so the mining company could reclaim the land. By 1956, Elcor was completely abandoned. Now, the Minorca mine sits directly over the site.

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Forestville

Forestville is in Fillmore County by Wykoff and Preston. It was founded in 1852, but the town's population began to drop after the railroad bypassed Forestville in 1868 according to Wikipedia.

By 1880, the town's population was only 55 and most businesses had closed. As families left town, the Meighen family, some of the first Forestville settlers, began buying up cheap property, and by 1889, they owned the entire town and its surrounding area.

By the early 1900s, even the Meighen family had left Forestville, and their general store's doors were closed in 1910, marking the end of the town's life.