ByGone Muncie: Ghost towns of Washington Township (2024)

By Chris Flook| Special to the Star Press

There is no agreed-upon definition of a ghost town. For most, the term describes the location of a former human settlement, now abandoned.

By that definition, Delaware County is full of ghost towns: lost communities forsaken by forebears and forgotten in the folds of time. A dozen or so such "extinct" settlements dot our county’s landscape, though the epicenter is Washington Township.

Most county maps today show just two communities in the township: the town of Gaston at the north terminus of the Yorktown-Gaston Pike, and the village of Wheeling, located where the Muncie-Wheeling Pike, Eaton-Wheeling Pike and Jonesboro Road meet at the Mississinewa River’s south bank.

Neither is a ghost town. Gaston was platted in 1855 and has remained a vibrant community. Originally founded as New Corner, the settlement grew to prosperity during the gas boom and with the arrival of the Cincinnati, Richmond & Muncie Railroad in 1901 (today’s Cardinal Greenway). Locals adopted the name Gaston during the boom, making it official in 1904 when the town incorporated.

Wheeling is older, having originated as an 1820s frontier trading center at the intersection of a federal government road (today’s Jonesboro Road/Eaton-Wheeling Pike) and the Mississinewa River. The site was purchased by William McCormick in 1834 and made into a small trading hamlet.

William originally called his new settlement "McCormicks" but soon renamed it "Cranberry" when he established a post office. McCormick changed the name again to "Wheeling" in 1838 when he officially filed the village plat map.

Wheeling was prosperous in the years before the Civil War, when small-scale riverboat traffic still operated on the Mississinewa. At its height, Wheeling had a school, Methodist church, sawmill, hotel and tavern. When the Chicago, Indiana & Eastern Railway was built west of the village in 1900, a "New Wheeling" addition was platted along the line. Wheeling reverted into a sleepy hamlet after railroad traffic ceased during the Great Depression. The post office closed in 1938.

Nothing left of Elizabethtown

Just north across the river from Wheeling lies the site of Elizabethtown, Delaware County’s archetypal ghost town. The settlement grew to relative prominence in the 1830s around Joseph Wilson’s "Elizabeth" grist mill. At its commercial height in the mid-19th century, Elizabethtown had a blacksmith, cabinetmaker, general store, dock, distillery and Presbyterian church. A fire destroyed the distillery in 1870, and the Great Flood of 1913 incapacitated the mill. Today there’s nothing left of Elizabethtown but the cemetery.

Cologne was once 'quite a lively place'

West of Elizabethtown and Wheeling, beyond Interstate 69 in Section 13 of Washington Township, lies another ghost town, named Cologne. The settlement grew around a rural post office that existed from 1870 to 1884 on the farm of Morris Jones. A Munsonian by the name of William Ladd bought the Jones Farm in 1881 and, in addition to serving as Cologne’s postmaster, opened a general store along the busy Wheeling-Summitville Turnpike.

Ladd described Cologne in a December 1881 letter to the Muncie Morning News as “quite a lively place.” His new store had “a large stock of goods and is doing good business.” The little hamlet even had a resident physician, Dr. W.T. Easter, and a butcher, W.I. McNabny. “Mack is an old Hoosier,” Ladd boasted, so he “cuts beef any way you want it.” Cologne’s blacksmith was “Old Billy Stokes,” who was “getting too feeble to do hard work.” Jennie Jones had taught the fall term that year at Cologne’s schoolhouse, known informally at the time as Zion School. Ladd praised Jones: “The scholars all like her and no complaint from patrons.”

The school was nicknamed after Cologne’s lone house of worship, Zion Chapel Methodist Church. Built in 1867, the church stood for almost a century before it was demolished in 1966. A new schoolhouse was built in 1900 but closed a few decades later. The structure still stands today, though it’s been converted into a private residence. It and the Zion Chapel Cemetery are all that remain of Cologne.

Culbertson's Corner lasted as long as its post office

Another ghost town named Culbertson’s Corner was south of Cologne and west of Gaston, at the intersecting corners of Sections 25, 30, 31 and 36 in Washington Township. The settlement grew around an 1870s post office on the farm of David Culbertson. At its height, Culbertson’s Corner had saw and grist mills, a general store and schoolhouse. The hamlet disappeared in the late 1880s after the post office closed.

Hamlets grew near rail stations

Two rural railroad stops also existed in Washington Township, though they aren’t exactly ghost towns because people still live there. The tiny hamlet of Janney lies southwest of Matthews in the northwest corner of Delaware County. Janney was established in the early 1900s around a rural Cincinnati, Richmond & Muncie Railroad station on the Wheeling-Summitville Pike. The settlement was named after Joseph Janney, an early Washington Township settler.

Stockport was another rural Washington Township rail station. It was located south of Wheeling where the Chicago, Indiana & Eastern Railway met the Muncie-Wheeling Pike. When the railroad was active between 1900-1920s, Stockport served as a livestock shipping station for township farmers. Stockport revived a bit mid-century when the feds temporarily ran U.S. 35 over the Muncie-Wheeling Pike. In addition to holding pens and the station, Stockport had a schoolhouse, general store, post office and gas station.

Slickville relied on tile works

Although not in Washington Township, the nearby ghost town of Slickville sat just across the border with Harrison Township, near the Madison County line. Built around an 1880s tile works, Slickville grew to include a general store and residential houses. After the tile works closed, Slickville reverted to farmland in the early 1900s.

Pitts Burgh existed at a bend on the river

Finally, the ghost town of Pitts Burgh lies upriver from Wheeling in Union Township’s Section 20. Like nearby Wheeling and Elizabethtown, Pitts Burgh grew in the years before the Civil War as a river trading and agricultural processing center. It was strategically located where the fed’s road (Eaton-Wheeling Pike) met a bend in the Mississinewa River. Although modern houses exist at Pitts Burgh today, the original settlement all but disappeared by 1880.

At best, no more than two dozen people lived in Pitts Burg at any one time in history. Ditto for Elizabethtown, Cologne, Culbertson’s Corner, Janney, Stockport and Slickville. They’re more like ghost hamlets than towns. However, it’s worth noting that nearby Muncie and Yorktown began similarly in the 1830s. All Delaware County settlements at that time were nothing more than small clusters of houses around mills, schools, churches and post offices.

Tales of ghost towns offer us then cautionary lessons for our own age: The fortunes of today may be fleeting, and tomorrow is never promised.

Chris Flook is a Delaware County Historical Society board member and a senior lecturer of media at Ball State University.

ByGone Muncie: Ghost towns of Washington Township (2024)

FAQs

What is the abandoned town in Indiana? ›

Wehrum, the largest of the former towns, once had 230 houses, a hotel, company store, jail, and bank. Warren Delano, uncle of President Franklin Roosevelt, developed the town. Other ghost towns include Bracken, Armerford, Lackawanna #3, Scott Glenn, Webster, Beulah, and Claghorn.

What is the number one ghost town in America? ›

1. Calico, California. Calico is an old West mining town that was inhabited from 1881. In its heyday, it had 1500 inhabitants and 500 mines, producing more than $20 million in silver in a little over a decade.

Why did ghost towns become abandoned? ›

The town may have also declined because of natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, prolonged droughts, extreme heat or extreme cold, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, pollution, or nuclear and radiation-related accidents and incidents.

Are there any abandoned towns in Washington? ›

Ghost towns in Central, Southeastern Washington

Liberty is one of the oldest mining areas in the state, according to the Washington Trails Association. Several buildings and mining structures remain today. The town was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

What is the most toxic town in the US abandoned? ›

Dan Bell narrates this documentary short that details the history of the now abandoned super fund town of Picher, OK. Once a booming town that depended on iron and zinc mining, the residents were unaware that although the mines sat abandoned since 1970, the remaining byproducts were toxic and poisoning the town.

What is the smallest town in Indiana by population? ›

New Amsterdam now officially became the smallest town in Indiana with the population being 12, down from 27 in 2010. Location of New Amsterdam in Harrison County, Indiana.

What is the radioactive abandoned town? ›

Chernobyl (/tʃɜːrˈnoʊbəl/ chur-NOH-bəl, UK also /tʃɜːrˈnɒbəl/ chur-NOB-əl; Russian: Чернобыль, IPA: [tɕɪrˈnobɨlʲ]) or Chornobyl (Ukrainian: Чорнобиль, IPA: [tʃorˈnɔbɪlʲ]) is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine.

Which US state is most haunted? ›

Coming in at the top of the list as the most haunted state in America is Texas, with 13,710 cemeteries, 7,517 ghost sightings, 925 haunted locations and 158 paranormal investigators.

Are there any real ghost towns left? ›

Well-preserved relics of our past can be found around the nation. One report by Geotab has identified and mapped 3,800 ghost towns in the U.S., many of which were vacated in the 20th century for greener pastures and big city dreams. However, just because no one lives there doesn't mean you can't visit.

Where is MrBeast's abandoned city? ›

Read| MrBeast's 7-day burial stunt leaves him in 'mental agony' The challenge was to survive in Kupari, a deserted city in Croatia. The video opens to show a helicopter dropping MrBeast and his friends in the city. They were given essential supplies such as water, food, and sleeping bags to survive.

What is the most preserved ghost town in the United States? ›

There was a time, a hundred years ago, that Garnet was a thriving town, filled with gold miners and their families. Working hard to carve out a community in the heart of the Garnet Mountains. In 1898, somewhere around 1,000 people called Garnet their home.

What is the hippie town in Washington? ›

Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound area of Washington State about 50 kilometers north of Seattle is one such island. The south end is known as a hippie stronghold with its artistic communities and small-scale organic farming of livestock, chickens, vegetables and herbs.

What is the most remote town in Washington state? ›

This remote village, located at the headwaters of Lake Chelan, Stehekin is one of the most unique places in the country. The only way in and out of Stehekin is by Boat, float plane or hiking in. There are no roads in or out of Stehekin.

What is the lowest population town in Washington state? ›

The largest municipality by population in Washington is Seattle with 737,015 residents, and the smallest municipality by population is Krupp with 49 residents.

Why is so much of Gary Indiana abandoned? ›

Gary's decline was brought on by reduced employment in the steel industry overall, which caused U.S. Steel to lay off many workers from the Gary area. The U.S. Steel Gary Works employed over 30,000 in 1970, declined to just 6,000 by 1990, and declined to 5,100 in August 2015.

Is Gary Indiana a ghost town now? ›

But decades later, it has become a desolate ghost town. Its declining population and abandoned buildings have lent it the title of the most miserable city in the United States.

Why is Silent Hill town abandoned? ›

The town was destroyed by flames when Alessa's immolation went awry, and the fires burned into the coal mines beneath the town, leading to its eventual evacuation and abandonment. How many of the town's buildings were set on fire is unknown, but it is extremely unlikely that the entire town was ignited.

Why is it called the Ghost Town Trail? ›

The Ghost Town Trail derives its name from the once-thriving towns of Wehrum and Bracken, dismantled in the early 1930s. Today only one of an estimated 250 original mining-era houses remains in Wehrum, across the state road from the former site of the hotel and the remains of the bank vault.

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