Learning & Preserving Our Heritage!
Kansas Ghost Towns –
by - cub-reporter, Flatlander
The city of White Cloud was one of the first, and in it’s day, one of the largest towns in Kansas. Though still technically a town, it is but a shadow of it’s former self. It’s listed on my Kansas Photo Tour website, with photos, location information, and comments. Here’s the URL addresss: www.rainbowtel.net/~harland/whtcld-i.htm - I have some additional photos scanned of White Cloud, I’ll send them if I can find them.
Calico, California…
by cub-reporter, Joel Berg
Calico is a self-proclaimed ghost town in the Mohave Desert. It still has a lot of silver ore in its mines, but cost of extracting it now exceeds its value. The Layout is a single main thoroughfare, quite scenic with mountains around it and an operating tour railroad which takes you through the mountain locations where silver was mined.
Commentary comes with the trip.
Woodford (Bywater) - Oklahoma …
I was reading my book Ghost Towns of Oklahoma by John W. Morris. Woodford was an interesting little town. The name of the town is Woodford (Bywater). It’s located in Sec. 34, T2S, R1W, 11-1/2 miles north, 9 miles west of Ardmore.
According to this book that was written in 1975 and published in 1977, Woodford (Bywater) had a Post Office from February 4, 1884 thru November 22, 1974.
Other info on Woodford… 1870 the Bywater brothers established their store and blacksmith shop on the south side of the Arbuckle Mountains. The site selected was near where the Whiskey Trail entered the mountains and a sulphur spring supplied large quantities of water.
It was first known as Bywater, but when a post office was established, the settlement was officially named Woodford in honor of the first postmaster. They say this settlement area before statehood was somewhat isolated and primitive. Section lines had not been completely surveyed. The road to Ardmore cut across grazing lands or fields southeastward and the roads to northern towns followed various mountan valleys and passes. Stores, homes, and other buildings were usually logs covered with sheet iron or rough lumber. Most houses had one room, although a few were two log rooms with a covered breezeway between them. There was a school started at an early date.
By 1915… Woodford attained its period of greatest importance. The town had a population of approximately 200 with 5 stores, blacksmith shop, barber shop, and hotel. They also had a telephone exchange installed; a cotton gin and a livestock dealer for the agriculture importance of the area. There was also a asphalt mining company headquarters in the town.
By 1920s… A consolidated school district was formed and a high school established.
By 1930s… The depression and WWII were hard on a lot of communities, even Woodford. The school plant was destroyed. State Highway 53 passes along the south edge of what remains of the town. There is a dirt road that past the old store and beside the spring that leads to Mountain Lake in the Arbuckles. At some point in the mid-1970s the spring had been cleaned and a roof built over it and the sides of the pool were somewhat stabilized.