there is a real reason this happens in texas. you see, when someone becomes elderly with property, and go into a care facility in texas, the kids cannot sell the property or else the mass majority of the sale goes to the care facility. so the property sits for years on end until the owner dies, then the property gets sold or reclaimed by unpaid taxes by the county.. then once in the counties hands, nobody buys it because the cost to restore the property is well beyond its worth. then coupled with the fact that your hours away from any real work to speak of, nobody buys it because they can never afford the loan on the place.. we see this happen all the time throughout rural texas.
In rural America you will find that the local school board and or county owned most of the property within their township because the previous owners have died or abandoned the property. Everything depends on personal income and being able to afford the necessary repairs on the house. Once you are out of work for whatever the reason you will find your choices very limited. You can die in the house or leave town and move in with your kids.
@@daleevans3250 i disagree. you'll actually find that most rural amarica is owned by the banks in one form or another.. counties do get allot of property from abandonment or tax burdens.. but the mass majority is owned by the banks.
Just no incentive to buy these old dumpy properties far away from anything. No work, no nature, no beaches, nowhere cool to hang out. Just… nothing. It would drive any young person crazy living out here. I come from a growing suburb of Houston and even that doesn’t entice me. Texas as a whole is very boring and the jobs aren’t fun, have lots of prerequisites and don’t pay too well compared to other states.
@@tybarker5038my best friends moved to Texas because they thought they’d do better than Wisconsin; they didn’t, so they moved to Arizona and now are worse off than being in Texas. They want to move back to Wisconsin but now can afford to. There’s no perfect place and the grass always seems greener….but sometimes greener, isn’t better or more affordable.
The Interstate highway system is one of the main reasons small town America is dying. There was once a time when travelers would stop and shop or eat as they traveled through those small towns. The main thing that destroyed all of the rural small towns is the lack of work for the young people once they finished school. Untill the mid 50's there was work on the farms but farm tractors put an end to that. One farm tractor could do the work of many men who used to go to town every Saturday with their families to do their shopping. I remember that many communities would close down their schools during harvest to get enough hands to bring the crops in. Rural America has always depended on farming to exist. Once that died, the towns died with it.
I grew up in Chicago, but we had relatives in NW Arkansas. Our trips to that State ... way back in the 50's ... would take about three days, traveling on Rote 66 through Missouri (which was a two-lane highway). But even at a very young age, I noticed the houses were very different from what I was used to, and some had a run-down appearance. My grandparents raised cattle and crops, mostly corn. But the houses that have been built in that area are not farms, anymore.
Stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina, while route 95 was being constructed, and I saw it firsthand! Smaller towns, and small businesses were bypassed. Sometimes they are 100 yards from the highway separated by a shoulder, drainage, ditch, and fence. Garages, convenient, stores, motels, and population all gone! Tragic! Toms, River New Jersey was the county seat when I joined the Marine Corps in 1959. It had a thriving downtown, everyone from the city moved down! No more downtown! My family lost our fish store! Urban renewal, they called it! No more poultry farms, and the only dairy farm fell victim to politicians! A little two classroom school house was demolished! It should have been preserved for the city people to comprehend what went before! The Garden State Parkway brought them all south!
I can not understand how highway system can cause depopulation of small towns in one country (like US) and can create developing of small towns in other countries (like in Europe) . In Europe as better highway system is, as more people live in small towns.
Farming died due to gov't interference in the ag economy. Post WW2 our gov't set a goal of building a large middle class. To help the American consumer be able to afford convenience items gov't guaranteed low food prices which indirectly subsidized all consumer goods by paying farmers to grow certain crops. Those crops were directly related to the gov't recommended grain based diet that has led to a diabetes epidemic. Through the yrs frugal blue collar farm families who stayed behind struggling on the farm gradually closed the income gap between themselves and their white collar, city cousins who took less laborious positions in industry after WW2. A couple of generations of men whose forebears were unable to remain in agriculture had convinced themselves their lives away from farming were better. Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet was an Edward Bernays' inspired propaganda campaign to keep them in suburbia. A little golf didn't hurt. During the transition period as US agricultural export companies transformed from scrappy local and regional competitors to international product monopolies, agricultural commodity prices became big news on and off the farm because white collar workers retirement funds publicized investments in ag related stocks. Suddenly at Thanksgiving when country cousins hosted their white collar cousins, they were awfully interested in what us hicks were doing, including what we were driving, they were suddenly enthusiastic to make a 40 mile round trip drive to look at our bare farm fields - and the farm equipment we had sitting around. By the next holiday they knew the price of every piece of our equipment along with its horsepower, etc. Every holiday devolved into an interrogation related to our yields, how many acres of each crop we raised, etc. It was a stealth way of asking the amount of our gross income, using tactics they assumed we were too unsophisticated to grasp or too well mannered to rebuff. We would have never considered being so rude to inquire of their net worth. During the late 1980s and 90s there was some confusion and a little resentment that our city cousins had lost their opportunity to farm. It was clear they didn't understand what a rigorous, stressful choice it is. Going to visit Grandpa on the farm during childhood leaves a drastically different impression than going when you're a strapping teen able to do real work, or a grown azz man making mind bending decisions daily. That's the timeframe when the grumbling about farm subsidies began. Every conservative voter in the USA was anti food stamps, and held deep convictions that agricultural producers should submit to the risk of a supply/ demand economic model. The idea gained steam and eventually phase outs for subsidies and deficiency payments were gradually passed through congress during a sustained agricultural economic upswing that led most farmers to believe global prices would float on supply, demand principle after almost half a century of heavy market control. Most consumers couldn't see the big picture being painted either. That's the period when "vertical" (top down) integration of ag biz began. A few American companies who'd gone multinational (due to tax law) began investing in ag related assets in the US. Cargill, Archer Daniel's Midland and Conagra cornered grains, bio fuels and meat protein from hoof to meat counter, in addition to the grain proteins they already controlled. These multinational corps then lobbied for transport subsidies to send US grain they bought from the American farmer around the world. Wouldn't transport be an ordinary expense for us serfs? Then it came out that Gates, Buffett, Turner et al were investing in South America, attempting to jump start an Industrial Revolution to compete with American farmers. Al Gore gave a big speech, the theme was USA could be a utopian green, service economy while polluting agriculture would be offshored to 3rd world nations with dirt cheap labor. By chance, is the current southern border invasion blowback from that venture capital plot to cut us off from our food? Did the serfs of South America rebel? I predict they'll avoid farmwork to work as carpenters, landscapers, etc. Out here in the rural backwaters where we're serious crop producers there are few holidays, and the work doesn't stop until the job is completed... and if you give us trouble we'll invent a machine to replace yur azz.
I grew up in another small town very near where you filmed. We used to play against Moran in basketball. My town has decreased in population since I was in high school, but thankfully has faired better than Moran because it sits on two well-traveled cross roads. I no longer live in Texas, but I do visit my parents often and always enjoy going home. It hurts to see the once-thriving communities die out, but such is the nature of change. Growing up in rural Texas was a good life, and I am thankful for my small town upbringing.
Me too. It was a wonderful time to grow up in Texas. Kids could run and play hide and seek all over the block and no one bothered the kids. All the neighbors looked out for us. It was a slower pace.
The "Nature" of change comes not from Nature but comes from the Gov't, planned and corrupt, keep the people down, big business, small time farmers busted, even big Ag farmers are being hit now. If you once had a thriving town, then why is it not thriving now, don;t just state that's the way it is", look at the source, follow the money.
I grew up in a small town in California that when young, looked a lot like these towns, you woulda thought it was a Texan town. The place has now become over crowded and a cesspool of crime in certain areas. Gawd do I miss it the way it was and great memories of actually playing outside with the other kids.
One of the biggest problems in a lot of west Texas towns is the fact that water has become even more scarce. The Texas summers are brutal especially in the western part of the state.
I'm 70 mi SW of Amarillo, where a tiny town's growth has been stymied by water availability issues. They have wells as far as 6 miles south of town. Most new residences are being built outside the town limits where they can drill their own wells. If you're going to have to ration water anyway might as well be in control of your own fate.
As a retired driver who did most of my driving in LA Phoenix San Francisco Seattle I now live in one of these backwaters and love it. These kinds of places only upset the city people there's like to go shopping and out to eat for entertainment
The kids n teens r working and relaxing with their adults No shopping for entertainment, no partying with mind altering substances, these ppl are putting food on the table n in pantry, wood on the pile etc
My grandparents had a farm just southwest of Lueders until 1972. It was just 160 acres, but they could make a living with programs like the soil bank and price supports. They grew wheat, cotton, feed corn, maize and had chickens, pigs, and cows. There was no irrigation, just had to hope for right amount of rain. I visited there frequently as a child in the 50s and 60s and the town had a grocery store, oil refinery, quarry, post office, gas station, five and dime, hardware store, blacksmith shop, barber shop, hair and nail salon, and a city hall. The kids all moved away in the 60s and 70s, they went to cities where they could get better jobs. My grandfather's farm was bought by a fellow who needed at least a thousand acres to make things work, the price support and soil bank programs had ended. You could see the town was dying as far back as the 1960s. There is a WalMart in a larger nearby town, everybody shops there. The town was also dry, had to go to another county to buy alcohol.
You will hear every other knuckle head give 1 or another excuse as to why these small towns are dying. In the end, it's one thing nearly every single time. The kids go off to bigger cities to make more money. That in essence is all it is. It's happening in a lot of countries south of the USA as well and for the same thing. The problem with a country holding a fiat reserve currency is the inflation it causes around the world. It puts people in a position where they HAVE to look else where for the generation of more money.
@@TechieTard You are right. I grew up in Texas closer to Lubbock. There just weren't really any jobs when I graduated in the 90's. Everybody moved off to other areas for work, and affordable housing.
My Mom is a country girl. She went to school in a two room school house in the Texas Panhandle. She is an 81 year old widow. I am glad I got to see those places as a kid. I am also glad our 30 year old daughter got to see it about 4 times. This is a part of Americana that most have never seen or would believe how productive these places once were. Good people, simple, God fearing. Many of these places were once in "dry" counties. Meaning no alcohol sales, mainly in the Bible belt. "Wet" counties were the ones where the big cities are, the border, and where you had significant German and Czech heritage. Hard working people. Very peaceful lifestyle without the craziness of the rat race most of us live now. Going to "town" was a big deal. Especially getting a burger where almost always they'd half wrap it with fries and a cherry coke. My Grandadd's pickup didn't have air freshener. It smelled of chewing tobacco and juicy fruit gum. My Grandmother, a farmer's wife, was not the most affectionate person but sure put love into her cooking. I could keep going but hope a little light was shed Texas small town country living. I am retirement eligible now and sometimes ponder living in the mountains of New Mexico or small town Texas. Oh well, time to go, y'all be safe, and thank you for your video sir ✝️
I'm 57 and just started traveling again due to my new career in the oil field in Texas and Oklahoma. I haven't traveled much since the 70s and early 80s with my parents when I was younger. I can't believe how bad our small towns are dying and the condition of our infrastructure has gone down. Thanks for your great videos.
Leuders looks like a tornado town so I looked it up. It is rated "High Risk" for tornadoes and has suffered 158 of them since 1950. The last town has over 80% poverty, just a handful of people, and the only commercial establishment is a liquor store. There's a lesson there somewhere.
Apparently you didn't read the rest of that incredibly BOGUS information! "According to records, the largest tornado in the Lueders area was an F4 in 1962 that caused 1 injuries and 0 deaths. *Tornado risk is calculated from the destruction path that has occured within 30 miles of the location." I'm a retired USAF Weather guy retired and now live about 40 miles from Lueders. There really aren't that many tornadoes and there is so much open farm land that when there are, they don't hit much. Many are missing a big point about these small towns. The real reason they are dying is CARS! Cars make it possible for business to cluster in bigger towns. The railroads made those small towns possible back in the day and cars made those same towns unnecessary. We're in one of those small towns, and the BIG REASON! Most of us are retired folks wanting to get away from the cities!!
@@jrkorman Historically towns were much closer together before cars or railroads and travel was by horse. I cannot think of a reason in today's world that all these small towns need to exist anymore so close together and many are just going to fade away. People can still live in rural America but many will not leave in a town.
I'm from a dying part of Texas like that. I left and went to where I could make a living and my cousins didn't. I have done decent considering, while they haven't (even after they received more education than I did) It seems like they were pulled down by the decay of the area they grew up in. It really is sad to see the only home you know die, many people leave but not everyone can do that. There was absolutely nothing fun to do as a kid except get in trouble. Those homes are probably not abandoned, I lived in worse.
I lived in inner city Houston. Gentrification has made my old neighborhood unrecognizable. My house gone and everyone that ever lived there. The house my parents paid $25,000 for in ’69 sold for $3.6 million in 2020. I wish I hadn’t seen it ten years ago.
This looks like the dust bowl in the early 1930's. Depressing. I'm a native Texan, 71 years old. Born in Ft. Worth, been in Austin the last 50 years. I remember visiting small towns with my parents when traveling as a kid. The towns were small, but had vibrant main streets and nice, but small, residential areas. They usually had a small grocery store, some sort of fast food place (Dairy Queens were typical), and a gas station or two. Wow, this is an eye opener.
You must have seen 'SOME" changes in Austin over the years. I lived in Houston in the early 1980's and everybody I knew wanted to move to Austin. It was easy back then to drive through Austin and go up to the lake further west. Well, I guess many DID move to Austin because I don't think I'd recognize it today.
@@joycelebaron2582 Let's put it this way, Austin hasn't been "home to the Armadillo" since the early 80's. Downtown, the live music culture was fairly healthy until the mid-90's, when the tech boom started and out-of-state techies began to arrive in mass numbers. Construction, especially in downtown central Austin and the Mueller subdivision, fired up to support the influx of new well heeled techies looking for convenient places to live. New high rise, luxury condos replaced what used to be the quaint Warehouse district, Sixth Street area leases skyrocketed, pricing out the live music venues. Housing costs rose astronomically throughout the city, forcing long time residents (such as myself, now in Pflugerville) to move. In my opinion, the most drastic changes occurred between roughly 1995-2010. The old Austin skyline, so stable from the early 60's until the early 90's, is no more. Even the capitol building is largely invisible from a distance. I was an Austin resident from 1973 until 2020, so have seen all this transpire personally.
@@curtvaughan2836 Thank you so much for all the info on Austin through the years from "on the ground' so to speak.And come to think of it, you never "DO" see the capitol building in the videos I've seen lately. Thanks again for the perspective.
@@joycelebaron2582 And lets not forget the whacko city government and what they have done to Austin. Defund the police is a great idea right ? Austin is as bad as LA
The funny thing is the town looks surprisingly well maintained despite low population & high poverty rate. The roads look well kept, the grass is cut, there's no graffiti on the abandoned buildings and there's not mounds of trash everywhere.
It’s such a sad social commentary that videos like this get so many views on RUclips. We all feel the same way as you do. What a shame, so much potential is lost, seemingly forever with these places rotting away. Keep up the good work!
Now that Men are no longer getting married? Its going to get EVEN worse. There is no reason to raise a family in the USA anymore. So down the hole it all goes.
@@MickeyMishra all by design destroy America. The old time oligarchy has take over and will make the middle class go extinct. 1%er kings ruling over 99% peasants is the new normal for America
In the long run America would have been better off under the kings and queens of England. Now they are going to take their revenge and make America far worse than it ever would have been under king george
@@johncalvo1743 It use to be the greatest thing in the world seeing your Family grow. The festivities the holidays, all of it. Christmas and Halloween were a BLAST! Then all the small things. Just like in a Blink-182 song. Its those small things that you always look back fondly on. Today, I took my 16 year old son to get Ice cream. Best part of it was right after I ordered the Uber to the Hotel to get an italian soda, His Ice- cream cone exploded all over his hand and table from the bottom. Had to quckly wipe the table and then wrap his hand in paper towels so we could get into the Uberwithout making a mess till we got the Hotel so he could wash up. Cab driver and me were cracking jokes about it all the way home. Telling him to "Keep it wrap up". 😆 He even opened the door for my son so he could get out. Man, what great service this UBER driver gave us. Then it was into Kennedy school. We laughed the whole time along with the Barista and gift shop staff about the ice cream incident. And how it JUST happened THE SECOND I ordered the UBER and we had to rush as we had less than 2 min before it got there. It's these moments that make it all worth it. But was it worth what I went through to get here? 😵💫😪😪*HELL #$@#$@!# NO* !!!!!! 😵😵😵😵 Out of the 5 children I raised, only 1 of them I see more then a few times a year. In fact the other one I saw once every 6 years. The other 3? I'm fine with never seeing again. Its just how it is. Stuff like that makes the whole idea of getting hitched a wrong one.
I'm from small town Texas. Folks are very happy in their small towns, just FYI. They drive to the next towns over for groceries and generally live peaceful lives at a calm pace.
The nearest towns near my grandparent's farm are like that. Farmers go to pick up some little item at the family grocery/convenient or parts store, have dinner at the one of (2) two diners... If they want fancy, they drive a little farther. They aren't interested in traffic lights, nor are they necessary. Makes me a little homesick.
@@pauljohnston2008 there’s nothing beautiful about crumbled homes and junk laying all over the place throughout a town. If people kept their properties clean then it would be different.
I'm going to look this town up, I'm in North Texas, land prices around here are insane. It would be awesome to turn one of those old buildings into a home.
I already looked it up…nothing about this area is worth buying a property. It’s just not one of those places you can drop cash and expect a decent quality of life. Forsaken land.
Living as an outsider in a small town is tough. Not every small town is like that, but most are. Cities don’t care who your dad or grandfather are as long as you are productive.
The problem is these town cannot compete with the options for work, entertainment, etc. So how do you keep the kids there when they see all the opportunities in the big city?
Lived in west and central Texas most of my life. About every other town (every 15 miles or so) is going away as you go down the road. I think part of the reason is that wagons and old cars dictated that necessities be a little closer than they need to be now.
The mechanization of farming meant far fewer people are needed on the land, and fewer town services. Combine with almost everyone having a vehicle now to drive to larger towns for services and shopping and the tiny towns shrivel up and die.
I live in Central Texas, and towns are going away, but its because its the fastest growing region in the US. Everything between Llano and Taylor is being turned into a subdivision of Austin.
@@JohnSmith-cn4cw I also live in Central Texas. Nobody wants to live in Llano or Brownwood. Those places are still small towns. People are leaving Austin due to housing costs, crime, overcrowding and moving north to Cedar Park/Leander/Liberty Hill/Killeen/Temple.
This really reminds me of Monango, ND. My great grandpa grew up there in the 1920s and 30s. Back then it had over 300 people. We went back there in 2021 to lay him to rest and there were only a few dozen people living there. I got to see the house where he grew up (and which his father built with his own hands). It hadnt been lived in since my great aunt died over 15 years ago. For some reason my older family members didn't take out the furniture and possessions. I guess they thought that at some point the house would be sold and then they would clear it out? But now it's overgrown and probably not safe to poke around in. Despite the decay I thought that Monango was a very peaceful place and we spent a nice afternoon there. There was even someone trying to repair the crumbling church at the center of town. Also there was a dog roaming the town (presumably its owner let's it wander). At first we were afraid it would attack us, but it was actually very friendly and followed us around town exploring with us.
PS: Sitting here on a Sunday morning reading the comments is so interesting! Sometimes I'd rather do that then read Classic Literature or the latest best seller (or even the Sunday paper which I must get to LOL). You learn more! I love hearing the stories and ideas of people who live in the towns and cities you travel through. Their perspectives are so interesting.
Decades ago some guy was proposing that we bulldoze all of these near dead towns, let them return to grassland, and let the bison come back. It sounded crazy, but seeing hundreds of places like this makes me want to reconsider. 🙁
I agree, the state or federal government should establish a program to clear these blighted houses and remover the trash. It's depressing to look at and represents a hazard, the natural beauty of the land would be much better.
This is the area of Texas on which my book, Michael's Eyes was based. Life there in the 1950s was primarily based upon the oil industry and farming and ranching. As more acreage was required to produce enough money to make a living and the oil played out, people moved on.
I live in England and have just found these videos. I'm binge watching them all and find them fascinating. This one is the saddest I've watched. All those once thriving communities abandoned.
They were once settled by English-Irish-Scots, lots of Germans, Comanche and later Mexicanos, they all look like towns in that part of the nation, nothing out there but oil, cattle and tornadoes, but I think today besides how bad they look at least they're probably peaceful and quiet.
@@paradoxstudios6639, you mean the Mexicans and Indigenous (mixed with Spanish or not) were living in Texas long before the Germans and Irish came over in the 1800's. Many people don't recognize or realize that Texas among many other now USA states was once Mexico. And before it was Mexico, it was territory claimed by Spain as much of the Americas and Caribbean later fell to the Spanish empire. 🙂
These small abandoned towns are a common sight in most states. Most were affected by a collapse of the local economy causing the residents to leave with few remaining behind.
A thing to consider is the actual size of the US in comparison. Many of these towns were likely "whistle stops" for railroads, and had little else to offer other than agriculture. The UK is much more condensed, so towns that lost their main incomes had a somewhat easier time of adapting. The collapse of coal in Wales may be a good analogy here, as many towns struggled to find a new industry. They adapted, but some of that is due to population v land space. In the US, we have far more land that affects this. Small towns, either thrive or are dying a slow death - and have been for a while now. Many were factory towns, and once the local plant closed, there was little mobility for the folks remaining. The young moved away, and the town slowly dies.
@@oldtop4682 This is true all over England. The High Streets have collapsed and the video of Texas towns could be my home town of Yeovil. True, the scale is less but I must be the last English speaker here (exaggeration I know, but you get the point.) as we have seasonal workers and cheap labour on farms who are peripatetic. It was a glove manufacturing centre but that's all gone to China. We have a helicopter company (Italian) but eventually that will move. The future for the young is grim.
My wife's family lives all around Lueders and so we are there a few times each year. I can tell you that the little store you drove past at 9:30 and I can tell you that they do in fact sell gasoline, always try to tank up when we are there. It is where a lot of the locals, farmers, quarrymen, etc. gather to talk about current events or whatever. That little store has saved us a 40 minute round trip drive to Walmart in Stamford for various items many times over the years...
Give that store all the business you can to help them stay in business! My parents used to live north of Fink, Texas (north of Pottsboro) and there was only one general store there that sold everything, and the local elementary school. Stopped there once to get me a local map and stamped on the front was "SHOP DOWNTOWN FINK"! I thought - that's Texas for ya!
Hands down, this is the saddest video I have seen. I wish there were statistics on the percentage of people who are actually content and happy or have they just resigned themselves to settle for what they have. Thanks for sharing LS.
It was interesting in Burkett that you pointed out where a house had burned down, and then took a left on Ash Street. I can’t help but have this thought when I see a collapsed or abandoned house: when that house was first built, it was the pride of its owner. Children were probably brought home from the hospital to it. When they grew, they spent Christmases and birthdays there, and ran and played in its yard. Then the children probably went off to war, and came home not wanting anything to do with their previous lives. When the parents passed away, the once proud house was left abandoned, and reclaimed by the very Earth that gave it life. Love your videos. As always, thanks for taking us along.
I grew up in Fisher county and I did home health wound care out of Abilene all the way to Rule, Knox City, Lueders, and a ton of tiny places between and beyond. You know, the kind of places they give directions saying, "turn left where the green water tank used to be." I adore that area and we still own the family cotton farm. Maybe with people wanting more of a rural life and being able to work online, there will be an interest in the area again. We most likely will move back to the family farm when we retire. God knows we ain't making money on cotton now or ever, but I ate that dirt as a toddler and hoed many a row of cotton growing up.
As a European I find these melancholy videos fascinating. They document a socio-urban collapse that would be unthinkable in our continent. I think the sheer size of America has a great deal to do with it. Small American townships seem very quickly to become isolated by a change in economic or social conditions, whereas in European countries no village is ever very far from an important town or city to which it can refer for help. For sure, we have small villages which do decline slowly, but nothing as dramatic as in these videos. The nearest European equivalent I've come across would be in Italy (where I lived for a few years), but there the abandonment of villages is usually always caused by natural disasters, earthquakes, etc - not economic vicissitudes. demographics obviously play a large part too: for its size America is massively under-populated compared to Europe. Here in the tiny island of Britain (which I think fits five times into Texas alone!) we have a population of 60 million. Anyway, just a few thoughts provoked by your extraordinary videos, for which many thanks.
Expanding on what d36williams said, all across the central US many of these declining small towns are due to long term changes in agriculture. In my part of the country (a fair jog north of TX) we also have many small towns that are just about abandoned. Farms don't need hired hands like they used to and then there was the double whammy of the depression and then WW2 saw people from small towns move to the coasts to work in the war plants. And almost nobody moved back when times were better. So it's been a long slow decline ever since. Towns that have some industry or are far enough away from other towns that they can draw on a larger area for support are doing ok, even thriving. But there's just no industry here to support a larger population like we had in decades past.
Where have you been in Eorope? I watch some RUclips channels that explore downtown parts of many French towns and villages that are devoid of human activity during the daytime. They're usually there to share some minor point of interest from WW2 with their audience, and usually have difficulty finding a place to get a drink or a snack after an extensive walking tour.
You want to see desolate? Large towns (even small cities) in Russian Far East and up north along Ob River. Tens of thousands of people in single industry Soviet towns/cities absolutely abandoned by Moscow in early 90s. The educated and skilled left. Hospitals simply abandoned because doctors and nurses just left. Thermal electric power plants shutdown more often than operating Water/sewer system just STOPPED.
Nice job with your video tours of dying towns. I really enjoy them. I live in prosperous Seattle which is becoming too expensive for all but the richest people. Even a rare, run down decrepit home in my neighborhood would sell for many times the median home price in Moran or Burkett; the land it’s built on is worth several hundred’s of thousands of dollars. Thanks for your work!
I live in one of these small towns and work side by side with the city on projects. You wont believe how much potential some of these towns have for new life. The most difficult it convincing people who already live in these towns to open business to be more self sustaining. As you’ve pointed out, property is cheap. Besides rattle snakes and hot summers, it’s not a bad place to live, lots of peace and quiet. Oh yeah, that thing at 9:00, it’s an old cotton gin.
@@trollolol705 A while back, I read about a couple small dead towns west of DFW being revived as retirement communities with tiny homes and manufactured housing. They were popular with those receiving lower retirement incomes that no longer afford to keep their homes or apartments.
@@trollolol705 I don't recall where those towns were located but assumed they were near cities with medical centers. I grew up in Chicagoland and was moving to Houston in '77 when I called my friends there when in Arkansas to find they just moved up to Longview. Went there instead to find it was a blue collar town in the middle of a nicer rural region so stayed there. Since then Longview has become a medical center so has been filling up with retirement and assisted living developments. The land has become more expensive due to additional housing developments so expect the small outlying towns to have retirement communities constructed inside/near their city limits since it doesn't take long to reach Longview on highways where one can travel doing 65 to 70 mph.
I won't be surprised if these towns come alive again. With all that's going on in the big cities people will want for quieter places. And some will have money too. You may be complaining later about people moving there. Would be good though if those there do a little fix up and business instead of just giving up. Maybe create a vacation spot.
I grew up about 50 miles from Lueders, TX in Knox City, TX. Played basketball and ran track against guys from Lueders Avoca( Consolidated School District). Never played against them in Football, as they were 6-man football. I am a 71 yr old Veteran and my home town is about half the population from the 1960’s. Knox City has ample oil production to keep it’s economy going. I’ve traveled that Tx highway 6 (the Korean War Memorial Highway) many times. Thank you for that little trip back around my old stomping grounds!
I lived in the outback part of Australia for years around Bourke & Cunnumalla & I can tell you these areas of Australia are very similar both in the landscape & state of the townships to what you're showing there in Texas.
Yes, inner New South Wales has the same geography as Texas but our towns are not left to die, we still care! The only reason an Australian town would struggle is rising goods transport cost and the closing of coal mines but we will survive overall!
Informational. I was stationed at an Air Force base in Abilene from 68 to 71 and traveled all around that part of the country. It sure looks different now, very depressing. But, thanks for the trip down memory lane. Enlightening and depressing at the same time. Your videos are great.
So you were at Dyess huh? I stopped in a few times we were stationed up in Wichita Falls at Sheppard from 94-09. Before I retired we had a combat control team at Dyess and our headquarters was located in Washington state (McChord AFB). There are a few of those depressing towns all around TX.... cheers :)
@@leonard5606 I was an instructor at Sheppard, in transportation from 77 to 79. Really enjoyed my time there. Got degrees from Vernon Regional JC and from Wayland Baptist which really helped me out. By the way, thanks for your service.
Dyess AFB was my last assignment before retirement back in 1987. I sure loved that place and especially the folks of that area. I still have friends there that I go to visit every year or so. I lived on a property just outside the ghost town of Stith. Left there in 1990.
Love your videos! Grateful you’re doing this. I drive for work and see these name from the main highway and wonder about their back stories. Thanks to you, I now have a glimpse into those small towns, although sad, but very informative.
One of the more haunting videos you've done of distant, dying America. Thirty miles (60 miles round trip) just to get gas-that's demoralizing in itself. By the way, on that almost entirely empty and rundown strip of commercial buildings constituting Putnam's center, that one place in which you asked:"is that place opened, do you think?" the answer is resoundingly yes. Had a well maintained sign reading "consignments accepted;" had posted hours of operation; and had usable looking stuff seen through the windows. Maybe one of the few kinds of businesses that might survive in such a town by attracting interstate buyers. There are people who'll drive a long way to visit a quirky consignment shop. A poignant point driving by the Burkett cemetery. The town is far more of a necropolis than a living community. Pleasurable seeing numerous dogs, horses and chickens-and one cat scooting at the edge of a squat stone church of just about the same color. Also, if I had to wager whether all of the churches shown were opened or just some, I'd go out on a limb and say they all were. There was one regarding which you expressed some doubt. Well, it had a ceiling neon light on inside. A great bridge, by the way! How can median home prices be accurately and meaningfully calculated in places with 160, 86 and 30 residents where there likely hasn't been a home sold for years.
Yeah that bridge was really cool, Joe - thanks! I think sometimes the Interstate can wreck a town rather than improve it and send business its way. There was no exit in Putnam and the 'big road' divided the town in two it seems. If they had put an exit in Putnam and built a Love's, the town would be hoppin'. PS: That tree was indeed spooky. The volunteers at the fire department must have moved away and the whole block was just left to burn down. And I guess there isn't a wrecking crew for miles.
This reminds me very much of last year when I drove from Waco to Sonora and Ft. Stockton...went through several towns that looked like this. I stopped at a couple of "stores" to get a snack and found the shelves virtually empty--kind of creepy. Nice to see someone on the swing though, at least one person is having fun.
I'm from here!!!! My sister, cousin and aunt and uncle still live here! I have many friends here. And my kids' biological father and his side of the family is all over this town. The crime is higher than your stats say bus that's because the cops don't come out here anymore. This town is becoming overrun by seasonal workers from Mexico. Drugs have taken over this town and alcohol is at it's highest as well. It used to be such a peaceful quiet town when I first moved there 12-13ish years ago.
Wow these are some pretty Awesome videos … If I was a few years younger I saw a whole lot of fixer - uppers that looked like they would pay off with a little work . I love these kind of videos ‘ I often think of the history & what kind of stories behind these long past towns that have pretty much lived their life..
Moran is where my grandpa grew up. He left at 14, in a freight car to Lubbock. He got a job pushing wheelbarrows full of concrete, bricks and mortar building the 1st bank, until he made enough money to buy a horse and saddle. After punching cattle for a big ranch 75 mi NW of Lubbock for 5 yrs he was paid in cattle and started his own outfit leasing grazing pastures from absentee landlords on the eastern fringe of the XIT Ranch during the period it was being sold off by the British corporation that were deeded ten counties in the Panhandle, in exchange for the cash to build the pink granite state capital in Austin. My mom said her dad seldom visited Moran - the women in his family were quite religious and he got tired of hearing all the reasons he was going to hell. Too bad you skipped the cemeteries. Bet there were plenty of Merritts buried in it. I believe there was a little oil boom in the 1930s. He went back to Moran to settle his dad's estate. He'd been successful enough that he was able to buy out all the fighting factions of the family and evict them from the property to sell all of it. I don't believe he ever went back. I wish I had stopped there to look around 30 yrs ago.
I was reading about Moran in Wikipedia, and it said that Moran won recognition as one of the most important sources of fossil fuels in Texas. This was in 1913. During the next 15 years, Moran had an oil and gas boom with population reaching 5000-10000 during the 1920's, but the boom was pretty much over by the 1930's. Its hard to believe that even 1000 people lived there much less 10000. That means that many of the homes that were there have been gone for many decades.
@kd5you1 Some of the houses in a declining city will fall into disrepair and be torn down to avoid tax liability, but there's also always been a market for moving houses to a new location in TX. Normally houses "to be moved" must fit size and shape criteria. Distance houses can be moved is quite an important factor, as miles can run up the cost. Crossing major highways and electrical transmission lines matter too. All factors that limit well built, trophy homes from having a 2nd incarnation. In older towns that grew to the point that major artery streets needed to be widened some old 1930s houses were an amazing historical archeological study in home construction. Outer and inner walls were clad with beautiful 1"x12" hard yellow pine boards installed on the diagonal. The houses were so heavy only the smaller ones, or those that could be dissected could be moved any distance. Some sat in home mover parking lots for over a decade. They were unsellable.
@@rt3box6tx74 Yes I remember in my old neighborhood were an old house would be there one day and gone the next... moved overnight by a moving crew. Those particular houses were on cinder blocks I believe or something similar. Our house was fairly newer than those & built in the 1960's on a foundation. Years after we moved away, it was demolished to make room for a new house.
Tornado's and bad weather can cause a town to collapse like that. When some of the main infrastructure gets destroyed or damaged and they can't afford to repair / replace it, then they just let it sit. A lot of those derelict homes had trailers and mobile homes next to them. That may be what they moved into after their homes were damaged/destroyed.
Your videos are eye opening and shocking! I had no idea of the degree of decline of US towns. It’s so sad. As a Canadian, who shares this continent with you, I had no idea…
There are RUclips videos of abandoned places in Canada. The town with population 85 with a median age of 65, how sad to be old and live alone in this dry, desolate place.
@loveydovey You are absolutely correct. This sort of decline can happen anywhere and I will certainly look for those videos. I grew up in Australia and I remember driving through the remains of small country towns. But it still shocks me that this can happen in the US.
@@ozgirl45 its called work nearby.... the majority of small towns exist in my state still due to most of them being off the interstate, generally speaking hookups are still fine and modern as long as you stay in the pockets of at least 1k due to 1 major broadband provider that has the state contract (essentially they have exclusive contract with the state and provide hookups for all government offices which means they have themselves subsidized by the state to ensure we have broadband in even our most rural towns)
We have places like this in Europe where local industry closes down an people leave... only people don't leave stuff behind.... like anything! People come and take all the timber to sell as firewood, all the cable gets striped from the buildings and every single bit of metal gets weighed in for scrap. You would never see abandoned vehicles. You can tell this is America.... even the poor leave money on the table.
It breaks my heart to see these rural communities just disintegrating. I’m from a small Texas town on the OK border and I’m waiting for your arrival there. I know you will find like conditions in a town that once had a population of 12,000 with a thriving commercial center. I would be interested in reading a study of how this all happened. Of course, I have my thoughts about it. Thank you for maintaining the dignity of these places that were/are home to many.
We know how it happened, it happened by design. Wealthy people who are always trying to explain to us that there's a path forward, something better beyond. I don't want their "beyond" I want simplicity. I want peace. I want this life. 😊
That area boomed after oil and gas fields were discovered there then started to peter out in the 1930's when the fields were near depletion. Their farming and livestock operations took a major hit during the prolonged drought in the 1950's which made more people leave. Folks still lived there but their kids saw no future in staying the region so left. Now all that's left are their aging parents and the few that have local jobs.
I lived in Abilene for years and watched those towns slowly get worse. Moved away and every time we visit family, it seems to get more and more depressing in many of those towns. Awesome job btw.
From Lueders, the nearest Walmart SuperCenter is 17.2 mi., about 20 mins away in Stamford, TX. From Moran, 27.0 mi., about 31 mins away in Breckenridge. From Putnam, 24.5 mi., about 22 mins away in Eastland. From Burkett, 36.4 mi., about 42 mins away in Brownwood.
I drive around the country with my son.... Not as much as you and I'm into Stats of each town n city.... What I've noticed is if there's no hospital, doctors, dentists, drug stores, food stores the towns will die off.... People don't go to doctors n don't live long especially men.... This isn't just Texas it's all states.... Gotta have these basic services to keep a town alive.... If ya living in a town and start to see these businesses leaving sell your house and get out before ya can't sell your house.... Again I see this all over our country....... Keep them coming.......Be Well.
These towns were once the center of commerce for the area, but due to changes in the economy and transportation infrastructure they are no long necessary or viable. Baird, for example, 20 miles east of Abilene on I-20 which you certainly drove through on your travels in West Texas, was a railroad town. Highway 80 (the major east-west road across the southern US) passed right through the middle. Every day several trains and hundreds of automobiles and trucks passed through. Then, when steam locomotives gave way to diesel-electric after WW II trains no longer needed to stop in Baird to take on water and coal. The interstate highway was built in the 1960's and all the heavy traffic that once passed right through downtown went around Baird. Lastly, the small farms and ranches that were the backbone of the region's economy were consolidated into large commercial operations or else went bust. There's simply no reason for the town to be there anymore.
Yup every city or town has (or had) an economic reason for existing. Once that reason is gone if a new economic driver isn’t found it’s just a long countdown to ghost town status.
This is such a great idea. Thanks for documenting this. I'm just like you in that these old towns fascinate me and sort of have a poignancy that's hard to describe. There's a great song by Mary Chapin Carpenter called "I Am a Town". It captures a lot of this vibe of a dying town.
Wonderful mesquite trees in all these towns. Mesquite wood burns slow. Create problems for water lines as roots can grow 50 feet or more underground to seek out water in dry westt Texas. Most of others I observed were post oak. The mesquite tree branches divide up near the ground.
These houses were built when farming and ranching was a way of life, those houses were new and there was a Community of some sort. Young kids leave here for jobs and a better way of life, and the older die off and there you go, the town dies. Cities is where the industry is now, and look at the way industry has changed. Cities are a rat race and most don't know their neighbors. I consider myself lucky, as I have lived both worlds. I find the smaller places more friendly and calming, and you learn about how everything works which will be beneficial if the "shtf" in the future. But the drawback is you can't make a living and you have to drive to shop. However, there is amazon!!
As a Brit, I can’t believe these videos, I’ve watched several of Mississippi, Arkansas and now this one in Texas, is this what small town rural life in America is really like, it’s like a third world country. The politicians of both colours it seems have a lot to answer for.
I live here in Central Texas, I can tell you there are a lot of small towns that have turned into ghost towns for a multitude of reasons. For example there is towns in south texas that had their "Hay Day" when there was a lot of major farms where they had farming colonies down there. I have a distant cousin back in the early 1900's where the whole family worked on farms and they would go to town for supplies and to gather at the local dance halls on the weekend. Those days are gone along with the farms since now grocery chains have contracts with certain farms in the southern valley of Texas. So those small towns just die. But just because the small town die's does not mean everyone has moved away. Since most of the roads here even in the back country are 70mph to get to the next big town only takes sometimes 30min to an hour max. So you will see mostly ranchers, hunting leases and retirees living out in the back country more than anything. So just because you see a small ghost town from the early 1900's does not mean much. There is still a lot going on in Rural Texas.
This has actually been a common occurrence throughout the short history of the USA. Our society incentivises searching for better opportunities over establishing sustainable communities.
There's not much for politicians to answer for though. These towns have no means to support themselves, and for a lot of them the closest city is 30+ miles away. When you're in poverty you typically don't have the money to buy a car to commute to a bigger town. About the only thing the government offers is SNAP/TANF/EBT and I'd imagine a large portion of people in these towns take advantage of it. With that being said, I don't think they deserve it. These towns have a charm to them, I've worked in almost all of them. Plus, one other thing to consider. Texas is MASSIVE. I'm not kidding when I say I've worked in towns where the closest city was over 50 miles away. At that point, the town is truly unsustainable. About the only thing that may revive them is if they get great Internet infrastructure and people that are work from home move to them. If my wife's job wasn't in person, I would have moved further away from the DFW Metroplex to somewhere like this. The only downside to that is these towns tend to have insane property tax rates too. For instance there's a town about 25 miles west of where I am. Beautiful little town (they do actually have a Walmart) that my wife and I seriously considered for a while. What stopped us was the property tax rate was around 5.5-6%. Double what it is where we currently are with a lot less cities close by. I could write a book on how these towns could potentially be revived, but I doubt anyone would ever put the effort and money into doing so.
I absolutely love these videos!! My last job took me to so many of these towns you show. I live about 45 minutes west of Fort Worth and used to love driving to all of these areas. I know to a lot of people these towns are depressing, but I absolutely loved them. Whenever I get older and retire I'd love to buy some land somewhere out west like this and enjoy a peaceful life.
My parents grew up in the area during the 40s-50s. Lueders used to be a hopping town with a movie theater and dance hall. My grandparents lived in Denton Valley. Now that they and my great aunts and uncles are gone, it's too painful to go back. It makes me so sad.
I share your pain Sheila. Here in West Central Victoria, Australia I am the very last man standing from both sides of our family going back to 1853. Everybody else has moved on or died of old age. I kept the house and some land around it because I can't bear to let it go and check in on it when I can. The house is large but the silence is deafening and makes me deeply melancholic when I recall all the laughter of family and friends, parties, Sunday dinners, the out of the blue visitors, the phone calls and the never-ending discussions about the business of farming. I deeply understand precisely why its too painful for you. The trick is though never forget them, never turn away from them and always speak with them. They never truly leave us. Stay well.
Love your vids man. Btw I would really be interested in short sort of "interviews" with people that still live in these towns, like what they do all day and why they havnt moved maybe. drive-by interviews :D
I think that the interviews would be the most valuable thing. Pictures of old buildings are cool but without any actual accounts about the town its just a snapshot
Would also be interesting to see how the remaining folks make a living (those who have to work at least) many may be living off Social security, VA Pensions etc)
Another great road trip, though it's sad to see the condition of the places. And another great cat, you must love cats, we've ourselves got Ginger, a good mouser at our farm
I'm strangely drawn to towns like this. I've lived in a few but nothing this far gone. When you live in tiny towns, it does bring more of a sense of community. Everybody knows everybody. I would love to somehow bring a little life back to these towns. Like a cafe... Thanks for sharing ❤
A cafe in a poverty stricken town where the residents are all old women; with an occasional customer passing through town looking for restroom and gasoline on weekdays is bound to throw away a ton of food and not stay in business very long.
@@misterd6879 And if you did date on Friday night, EVERYONE in town knew what happened including your mama, and her mama by noon on Saturday! Yeah, small towns have pluses and minuses lol. Still, I plan to move back to a small town in retirement. Knowing everyone can be a plus...but as a young person....
I’m from a small Texas town that has thrived and actually tripled in size in the last 40 years. I’m amazed that people remain in some of these dying towns. I know it’s their past and their friends are there but it must be somewhat depressing.
There are no friends left here. Our big beautiful Baptist and Methodist churches built in the post war economic boom are empty on Sundays. We no longer have pastors. When the roof gets bad our churches will begin the process of decay. I'm in the heart of the two richest agricultural counties in TX. White flight due to consequences of the Reagan Amnesty that overran our small town with people who prefer part time employment as long as there are social programs adequate to help them along when they choose not to work, killed our thriving community. Businessmen who could afford to drive 25 or 50 miles daily moved their young families to bigger towns where the education system wasn't bogged down teaching in dual languages, or teaching English instead of history, geography, Literature, Chemistry, etc. Most entrepreneur businesses owners who moved their families, but kept their businesses ended up selling out to some agricultural conglomerate within 5 yrs. The new owners set about killing off their local competitors with unethical and illegal business practices which result in abandonment by customers. Farm and ranchland owner/operators are the last group to follow the trend that's been underway now for 40 yrs. There are no babies born in our county. The county hospital had to close down the ob ward because of decades of no-pay by customers with bills that were uncollectable. Families from this county travel 140 mile round trip for normal healthcare. It becomes too much for our elderly who eventually move closer to their doctors. Some residents have a home in the original county and another in the city. The most common reason for senior citizens leaving my town of 1500 population is to be nearer to a complete healthcare system, while our county hospital has morphed into a clinic for sore throats and runny noses, cases of ringworm, etc. For emergency situations they do triage, consisting of a decision whether patients travel by ambulance or helicopter to out-of-county centers. Our hospital board bribes idealistic young docs and older docs needing to slow down in the last 5 yrs of their long career to move here by offering to pay off a portion of their medical school debt, or offering a limited work schedule for older docs. None of them come here planning to stay, and none come back. They seldom participate in community activities and be sure to get out before their children pass 3rd grade. There are some excellent docs who pass through, but they move on after their contract is up. With the law of averages, having this revolving door of medical professionals passing through we get some nut cases too. It's been a long time since we've had a real bad one, but most have aspirations of sainthood as a result of providing treatment to the low income community. It takes them about 3 yrs to outgrow that delusion. We get some who are probably excellent docs, but have problems with handling stressful situations. I went in for followup blood test to check iron levels and quickly became the doc's therapist. I spent a 15 min visit listening to him unload about a nursing home patient he expected to perish that day. He went on and on, and evidently didn't give clear orders to the lab regarding my 2 vials of blood. 2 weeks later the lab tech called asking me to return to have more blood drawn. Since she used her language barrier as an excuse to withhold from me what happened to the original 2 vials I declined the invitation. There were about 3 subsequent followup calls I ignored. This is the typical narrative shared by residents using local clinic services. After 2, 3, 4 decades of losing a couple of businesses from the county per year you wind up with the Cloward-Piven effect. A couunty with 2 thriving car dealerships, 15 independent car repair shops, 5 appliance sales and repair shops, 6 grocery stores, 5 lumber yards, 4 pharmacies, 5 dental clinics, 4 dry cleaners, 6 department stores and another 4 dress shops, 6 agricultural equipment sales and repair businesses, 6 Ariel applicators, 6 ag fertilizer companies, 10 gas stations... you get the picture? The Reagan Amnesty was a trial run. We gradually forgot about the confrontations we faced in daily life during that period of "assimilation" aka, adjustment by us. The current invasion's consequences won't play out over 40 yrs. It'll be that Warp Speed thing we heard about.
@@rt3box6tx74 I don’t think Reagan’s Amnesty is to blame. I think it’s lack of vision for the future and poor planning of the city councils. Too many wanted it to remain the same and closed. Children grew up and because there wasn’t a change in providing a viable job market, they left and the parents, grandparents, and aged died off.
Maybe the problem of those cities is not the highway but the speed limit in the US. In Germany a lot of people drive to work 50-100miles but with average car's speed of 120mph or more they dont need to move to big cities
@Gabrocha II Small rural towns aren't candidates for the type of job creation you advocate. There are all the blue collar jobs anyone could want in this county. There are farm jobs, ranch jobs, truck driving jobs, dairy jobs, cattle feedlot jobs, grain co jobs, lumber yard jobs, bank jobs, convenience store jobs, gas station jobs, car wash jobs, vehicle repair jobs, teaching jobs, restaurant jobs, insurance agency jobs, but almost none of those offer a 40 hour work week and time for golf or lounging by a pool in the evening. That city planning garbage very often leads to jail time for those who push it in the larger towns. Some council member gets greedy, a bribe happens and taxpayers eat the bill. Capitalism can happen without involvement of busybody leaders trying to push unnatural growth. Growth has been grossly oversold as guaranteed community prosperity. Without the tax base to pay for tax abatement that lures industry in, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Our county offered 10 year tax abatement to dairies who were moving in from CA & AZ. Now 80% of their workers are from neighboring counties who don't compensate us for taking jobs meant for locals, and this county's taxpayers are paying higher county taxes because of it. My children were victims of educational deficiencies caused by our rural schools being overrun with non-English-speaking children and parents overwhelmed by culture shock. I paid for about 3 extra semesters of their post high school education to catch up. I helped a few men and their wives with their amnesty paperwork. I don't believe any of them finished and became citizens. It seemed they feared they might not be able to return to their beloved homeland if they became American citizens. They merely allowed me to sweat bullets over their applications to remain in our employ for a year or two. I swore I'd never devote my time and kindness to a n other.
I was born and raised in Abilene, Tx. A lot of those ghost towns you went through I either lived there or partied there. Those little towns will give you the creeps at night. It’s crazy how fast they are disappearing in todays age.
There's also a whole series of posts on RUclips about people, often retired, who are living in their cars. It's a puzzle to me that no one sees a way to have two problems solve each other. Condemn the usable abandoned property and make it available to the car dwellers and perhaps some life can be restored to some towns.
I grew up in Montana, and on the eastern side of the Rockies, you find abandoned homesteads all over the place. I once found a Sears catalog from the early 1900s in an ancient refrigerator in one of these abandoned homesteads. Rural America has a lot of abandoned and nearly abandoned towns. Shit's crazy
I have often thought about buying up the abandoned properties in these towns and trying to restore the buildings that can be restored or demolish and rebuild in similar style buildings, but modern inside.
I grew up in Northern WI decades ago. There are entire towns that are completely reclaimed by nature to include the roads. Most are now in state parks but some are just completely abandoned on private property that has been on the unpaid tax rolls for decades. Thousands of acres of abandoned towns forgotten to history. Once iron and old growth tree booms expired during the last hundred years or so people just got up and left. Some homes still have the table set like a person will come home.
I was born in Coleman, Texas…in the area you are covering today. Since I was planning to be buried in the Family Plot, I was hoping you’d find the town of Coleman to be functional. Thanks for your great documentaries! Dave
i came across your video and it caught my attention as i live in Texas, but in San Antonio. this is heartbreaking and to see so many abandon homes and buildings. but the heartbreaking thought is this could happen to any of us, especially now. thanks for sharing and drive safely
I lived in Abilene, Texas, in the 80's when I was in the military. I remember these small towns outside of Abilene, especially Moran, which hosted a 5k race that I competed in.
A great video. Your videos are so engaging and interesting, and it's so fascinating to hear the back-stories and statistics about these old towns, but also sad. It's lovely to spot the occasional kitty cat, too !! Thank you so much for sharing these, and for your time and hard work. 😊
G'day LS, its sad to see the demise of small towns in the US it's happening here in Australia also on a smaller scale and at a slower rate. As a member of our local historical society I find it fascinating to be able to see before and after images of buildings thanks.
Lueders was once famous for it's limestone would wide and had oil refinery. The town started it downfall when the refinery burned down. I remember going out there for family reunion in the summer.. as far back as I remember the town never had more the 220 population. My grandfather had a feed store there grandmother ran their laundry mat. My uncle at one time has the small store too. As a kid would go to the cafe and get a hamburger that my great-aunt would make for my cousin and I.
I discovered basically a Ghost town right on the interstate last time I traveled through West Texas. Kent TX is basically a Ghost town. The post office closed a few years ago. I don't believe there's anybody left. There was a convenience store gas station open but it closed as well.
I love your channel. Have you ever interviewed locals in a public place for a video? If you dont record it you could talk about the interview as you drive. That would be so interesting.
This question comes up literally every video. Says he just doesn’t have enough time to cover as much as he does if he had to stop and talk to people…I don’t blame him…
Interviewing People In Poor & Ghost Towns Can Be Risky To Do. Driving Through Is Enough Risk To Take, On A Wing & A Prayer🙏. The Way Lord Drives Through Would Not Appear To Be Looking Like A Bill Collector Or Tax Collector To Those Living In Their Homes, Right Off The Bat, He Keeps On Traveling Through.
I have driven past all of these old towns driving around the area for work. There are so many little old towns like this between Fort Worth, Abilene, and San Angelo. I’ve wanted to check them out too, but never take the time.
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there is a real reason this happens in texas. you see, when someone becomes elderly with property, and go into a care facility in texas, the kids cannot sell the property or else the mass majority of the sale goes to the care facility. so the property sits for years on end until the owner dies, then the property gets sold or reclaimed by unpaid taxes by the county.. then once in the counties hands, nobody buys it because the cost to restore the property is well beyond its worth. then coupled with the fact that your hours away from any real work to speak of, nobody buys it because they can never afford the loan on the place.. we see this happen all the time throughout rural texas.
In rural America you will find that the local school board and or county owned most of the property within their township because the previous owners have died or abandoned the property. Everything depends on personal income and being able to afford the necessary repairs on the house. Once you are out of work for whatever the reason you will find your choices very limited. You can die in the house or leave town and move in with your kids.
@@daleevans3250 i disagree. you'll actually find that most rural amarica is owned by the banks in one form or another.. counties do get allot of property from abandonment or tax burdens.. but the mass majority is owned by the banks.
@@danratsnapnames agreed
Just no incentive to buy these old dumpy properties far away from anything. No work, no nature, no beaches, nowhere cool to hang out. Just… nothing. It would drive any young person crazy living out here. I come from a growing suburb of Houston and even that doesn’t entice me. Texas as a whole is very boring and the jobs aren’t fun, have lots of prerequisites and don’t pay too well compared to other states.
@@tybarker5038my best friends moved to Texas because they thought they’d do better than Wisconsin; they didn’t, so they moved to Arizona and now are worse off than being in Texas. They want to move back to Wisconsin but now can afford to. There’s no perfect place and the grass always seems greener….but sometimes greener, isn’t better or more affordable.
The Interstate highway system is one of the main reasons small town America is dying. There was once a time when travelers would stop and shop or eat as they traveled through those small towns. The main thing that destroyed all of the rural small towns is the lack of work for the young people once they finished school. Untill the mid 50's there was work on the farms but farm tractors put an end to that. One farm tractor could do the work of many men who used to go to town every Saturday with their families to do their shopping. I remember that many communities would close down their schools during harvest to get enough hands to bring the crops in. Rural America has always depended on farming to exist. Once that died, the towns died with it.
You're right.
I grew up in Chicago, but we had relatives in NW Arkansas. Our trips to that State ... way back in the 50's ... would take about three days, traveling on Rote 66 through Missouri (which was a two-lane highway). But even at a very young age, I noticed the houses were very different from what I was used to, and some had a run-down appearance. My grandparents raised cattle and crops, mostly corn. But the houses that have been built in that area are not farms, anymore.
Stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina, while route 95 was being constructed, and I saw it firsthand! Smaller towns, and small businesses were bypassed. Sometimes they are 100 yards from the highway separated by a shoulder, drainage, ditch, and fence. Garages, convenient, stores, motels, and population all gone! Tragic!
Toms, River New Jersey was the county seat when I joined the Marine Corps in 1959. It had a thriving downtown, everyone from the city moved down! No more downtown! My family lost our fish store! Urban renewal, they called it! No more poultry farms, and the only dairy farm fell victim to politicians! A little two classroom school house was demolished! It should have been preserved for the city people to comprehend what went before!
The Garden State Parkway brought them all south!
I can not understand how highway system can cause depopulation of small towns in one country (like US) and can create developing of small towns in other countries (like in Europe) . In Europe as better highway system is, as more people live in small towns.
Farming died due to gov't interference in the ag economy. Post WW2 our gov't set a goal of building a large middle class. To help the American consumer be able to afford convenience items gov't guaranteed low food prices which indirectly subsidized all consumer goods by paying farmers to grow certain crops.
Those crops were directly related to the gov't recommended grain based diet that has led to a diabetes epidemic.
Through the yrs frugal blue collar farm families who stayed behind struggling on the farm gradually closed the income gap between themselves and their white collar, city cousins who took less laborious positions in industry after WW2.
A couple of generations of men whose forebears were unable to remain in agriculture had convinced themselves their lives away from farming were better. Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet was an Edward Bernays' inspired propaganda campaign to keep them in suburbia. A little golf didn't hurt.
During the transition period as US agricultural export companies transformed from scrappy local and regional competitors to international product monopolies, agricultural commodity prices became big news on and off the farm because white collar workers retirement funds publicized investments in ag related stocks. Suddenly at Thanksgiving when country cousins hosted their white collar cousins, they were awfully interested in what us hicks were doing, including what we were driving, they were suddenly enthusiastic to make a 40 mile round trip drive to look at our bare farm fields - and the farm equipment we had sitting around. By the next holiday they knew the price of every piece of our equipment along with its horsepower, etc. Every holiday devolved into an interrogation related to our yields, how many acres of each crop we raised, etc. It was a stealth way of asking the amount of our gross income, using tactics they assumed we were too unsophisticated to grasp or too well mannered to rebuff. We would have never considered being so rude to inquire of their net worth.
During the late 1980s and 90s there was some confusion and a little resentment that our city cousins had lost their opportunity to farm. It was clear they didn't understand what a rigorous, stressful choice it is. Going to visit Grandpa on the farm during childhood leaves a drastically different impression than going when you're a strapping teen able to do real work, or a grown azz man making mind bending decisions daily.
That's the timeframe when the grumbling about farm subsidies began. Every conservative voter in the USA was anti food stamps, and held deep convictions that agricultural producers should submit to the risk of a supply/ demand economic model. The idea gained steam and eventually phase outs for subsidies and deficiency payments were gradually passed through congress during a sustained agricultural economic upswing that led most farmers to believe global prices would float on supply, demand principle after almost half a century of heavy market control. Most consumers couldn't see the big picture being painted either. That's the period when "vertical" (top down) integration of ag biz began. A few American companies who'd gone multinational (due to tax law) began investing in ag related assets in the US.
Cargill, Archer Daniel's Midland and Conagra cornered grains, bio fuels and meat protein from hoof to meat counter, in addition to the grain proteins they already controlled. These multinational corps then lobbied for transport subsidies to send US grain they bought from the American farmer around the world. Wouldn't transport be an ordinary expense for us serfs?
Then it came out that Gates, Buffett, Turner et al were investing in South America, attempting to jump start an Industrial Revolution to compete with American farmers. Al Gore gave a big speech, the theme was USA could be a utopian green, service economy while polluting agriculture would be offshored to 3rd world nations with dirt cheap labor.
By chance, is the current southern border invasion blowback from that venture capital plot to cut us off from our food? Did the serfs of South America rebel? I predict they'll avoid farmwork to work as carpenters, landscapers, etc.
Out here in the rural backwaters where we're serious crop producers there are few holidays, and the work doesn't stop until the job is completed... and if you give us trouble we'll invent a machine to replace yur azz.
I grew up in another small town very near where you filmed. We used to play against Moran in basketball. My town has decreased in population since I was in high school, but thankfully has faired better than Moran because it sits on two well-traveled cross roads. I no longer live in Texas, but I do visit my parents often and always enjoy going home. It hurts to see the once-thriving communities die out, but such is the nature of change. Growing up in rural Texas was a good life, and I am thankful for my small town upbringing.
Me too. It was a wonderful time to grow up in Texas. Kids could run and play hide and seek all over the block and no one bothered the kids. All the neighbors looked out for us. It was a slower pace.
The "Nature" of change comes not from Nature but comes from the Gov't, planned and corrupt, keep the people down, big business, small time farmers busted, even big Ag farmers are being hit now. If you once had a thriving town, then why is it not thriving now, don;t just state that's the way it is", look at the source, follow the money.
❤❤❤❤❤
I grew up in a small town in California that when young, looked a lot like these towns, you woulda thought it was a Texan town. The place has now become over crowded and a cesspool of crime in certain areas. Gawd do I miss it the way it was and great memories of actually playing outside with the other kids.
@@TechieTardcesspool of crime in California...shocking!
One of the biggest problems in a lot of west Texas towns is the fact that water has become even more scarce. The Texas summers are brutal especially in the western part of the state.
I'm 70 mi SW of Amarillo, where a tiny town's growth has been stymied by water availability issues. They have wells as far as 6 miles south of town. Most new residences are being built outside the town limits where they can drill their own wells. If you're going to have to ration water anyway might as well be in control of your own fate.
and yet Midland/Odessa has doubled in population in the last decade.
@@maddhatter3564 That's because it's the center of the "Oil Patch".
@@williammorrill946 DUH
And the gulf coast with heat and 90% humidity with no clouds in the sky.
As a cross Country truck driver who has dealt with congested cities and congested roads,I would be happier here than in a mansion in L.A.m
As a retired driver who did most of my driving in LA Phoenix San Francisco Seattle I now live in one of these backwaters and love it. These kinds of places only upset the city people there's like to go shopping and out to eat for entertainment
I would love to live like this but would need high speed internet.
@@Poopster4UDoubt you would find that there.
@@el-Cu9432 StarLink by SpaceX
@@haymaker710 I would.
Saludos from Edinburg Texas The Valley 956
No kids playing, no adults partying, no teens shopping... no people, period. What's becoming of rural America? Thanks for your hard work, btw. 💯🙂
I guess because I haven't came to this town, yet. 😀
People migrate to work. It’s nothing new
@@skyhawk4426 lol 😆
Just happened upon Gov Abbott’s governance.
The kids n teens r working and relaxing with their adults
No shopping for entertainment, no partying with mind altering substances, these ppl are putting food on the table n in pantry, wood on the pile etc
My grandparents had a farm just southwest of Lueders until 1972. It was just 160 acres, but they could make a living with programs like the soil bank and price supports. They grew wheat, cotton, feed corn, maize and had chickens, pigs, and cows. There was no irrigation, just had to hope for right amount of rain. I visited there frequently as a child in the 50s and 60s and the town had a grocery store, oil refinery, quarry, post office, gas station, five and dime, hardware store, blacksmith shop, barber shop, hair and nail salon, and a city hall. The kids all moved away in the 60s and 70s, they went to cities where they could get better jobs. My grandfather's farm was bought by a fellow who needed at least a thousand acres to make things work, the price support and soil bank programs had ended. You could see the town was dying as far back as the 1960s. There is a WalMart in a larger nearby town, everybody shops there. The town was also dry, had to go to another county to buy alcohol.
You will hear every other knuckle head give 1 or another excuse as to why these small towns are dying. In the end, it's one thing nearly every single time. The kids go off to bigger cities to make more money. That in essence is all it is. It's happening in a lot of countries south of the USA as well and for the same thing. The problem with a country holding a fiat reserve currency is the inflation it causes around the world. It puts people in a position where they HAVE to look else where for the generation of more money.
There was probably also a train routinely making a stop to pick up and transport all that wheat, cotton, feed corn, maize, etc. to the larger cities.
@@TechieTard
You are right. I grew up in Texas closer to Lubbock. There just weren't really any jobs when I graduated in the 90's. Everybody moved off to other areas for work, and affordable housing.
Walmart killed small mom and pop shops everywhere but especially in small towns.
My Mom is a country girl. She went to school in a two room school house in the Texas Panhandle. She is an 81 year old widow. I am glad I got to see those places as a kid. I am also glad our 30 year old daughter got to see it about 4 times. This is a part of Americana that most have never seen or would believe how productive these places once were. Good people, simple, God fearing. Many of these places were once in "dry" counties. Meaning no alcohol sales, mainly in the Bible belt. "Wet" counties were the ones where the big cities are, the border, and where you had significant German and Czech heritage. Hard working people. Very peaceful lifestyle without the craziness of the rat race most of us live now. Going to "town" was a big deal. Especially getting a burger where almost always they'd half wrap it with fries and a cherry coke. My Grandadd's pickup didn't have air freshener. It smelled of chewing tobacco and juicy fruit gum. My Grandmother, a farmer's wife, was not the most affectionate person but sure put love into her cooking. I could keep going but hope a little light was shed Texas small town country living. I am retirement eligible now and sometimes ponder living in the mountains of New Mexico or small town Texas. Oh well, time to go, y'all be safe, and thank you for your video sir ✝️
The "God-fearin" nonsense is great reason to stay the hell away
@@BettyBo-zg1okAmen!
I'm 57 and just started traveling again due to my new career in the oil field in Texas and Oklahoma. I haven't traveled much since the 70s and early 80s with my parents when I was younger. I can't believe how bad our small towns are dying and the condition of our infrastructure has gone down. Thanks for your great videos.
@@TOCC50 thay are human just like you
@@teshuvahemmet3036 DMTBKA
@@TOCC50 what does that mean?
they cant fill em with Wets?
@@TOCC50 Zero you is paradise for the human race
Leuders looks like a tornado town so I looked it up. It is rated "High Risk" for tornadoes and has suffered 158 of them since 1950. The last town has over 80% poverty, just a handful of people, and the only commercial establishment is a liquor store. There's a lesson there somewhere.
I was wondering if this is apart of Tornado alley
Apparently you didn't read the rest of that incredibly BOGUS information!
"According to records, the largest tornado in the Lueders area was an F4 in 1962 that caused 1 injuries and 0 deaths. *Tornado risk is calculated from the destruction path that has occured within 30 miles of the location."
I'm a retired USAF Weather guy retired and now live about 40 miles from Lueders. There really aren't that many tornadoes and there is so much open farm land that when there are, they don't hit much.
Many are missing a big point about these small towns. The real reason they are dying is CARS! Cars make it possible for business to cluster in bigger towns. The railroads made those small towns possible back in the day and cars made those same towns unnecessary. We're in one of those small towns, and the BIG REASON! Most of us are retired folks wanting to get away from the cities!!
@@jrkorman Historically towns were much closer together before cars or railroads and travel was by horse. I cannot think of a reason in today's world that all these small towns need to exist anymore so close together and many are just going to fade away. People can still live in rural America but many will not leave in a town.
"Looks like a tornado town"
What the hell does that mean?
I will retire in a few years and would love nothing more than to go live in a town just like this.
I'm from a dying part of Texas like that. I left and went to where I could make a living and my cousins didn't. I have done decent considering, while they haven't (even after they received more education than I did) It seems like they were pulled down by the decay of the area they grew up in. It really is sad to see the only home you know die, many people leave but not everyone can do that. There was absolutely nothing fun to do as a kid except get in trouble. Those homes are probably not abandoned, I lived in worse.
I lived in inner city Houston. Gentrification has made my old neighborhood unrecognizable. My house gone and everyone that ever lived there. The house my parents paid $25,000 for in ’69 sold for $3.6 million in 2020. I wish I hadn’t seen it ten years ago.
The last 13 years I lived in a town of less than 350. It was very peaceful.
This looks like the dust bowl in the early 1930's. Depressing. I'm a native Texan, 71 years old. Born in Ft. Worth, been in Austin the last 50 years. I remember visiting small towns with my parents when traveling as a kid. The towns were small, but had vibrant main streets and nice, but small, residential areas. They usually had a small grocery store, some sort of fast food place (Dairy Queens were typical), and a gas station or two. Wow, this is an eye opener.
when you have foreigners buying up the valuable land that people worked at and then shutting it down you get towns like this
You must have seen 'SOME" changes in Austin over the years. I lived in Houston in the early 1980's and everybody I knew wanted to move to Austin. It was easy back then to drive through Austin and go up to the lake further west. Well, I guess many DID move to Austin because I don't think I'd recognize it today.
@@joycelebaron2582 Let's put it this way, Austin hasn't been "home to the Armadillo" since the early 80's. Downtown, the live music culture was fairly healthy until the mid-90's, when the tech boom started and out-of-state techies began to arrive in mass numbers. Construction, especially in downtown central Austin and the Mueller subdivision, fired up to support the influx of new well heeled techies looking for convenient places to live. New high rise, luxury condos replaced what used to be the quaint Warehouse district, Sixth Street area leases skyrocketed, pricing out the live music venues. Housing costs rose astronomically throughout the city, forcing long time residents (such as myself, now in Pflugerville) to move. In my opinion, the most drastic changes occurred between roughly 1995-2010. The old Austin skyline, so stable from the early 60's until the early 90's, is no more. Even the capitol building is largely invisible from a distance. I was an Austin resident from 1973 until 2020, so have seen all this transpire personally.
@@curtvaughan2836 Thank you so much for all the info on Austin through the years from "on the ground' so to speak.And come to think of it, you never "DO" see the capitol building in the videos I've seen lately. Thanks again for the perspective.
@@joycelebaron2582 And lets not forget the whacko city government and what they have done to Austin. Defund the police is a great idea right ? Austin is as bad as LA
The funny thing is the town looks surprisingly well maintained despite low population & high poverty rate. The roads look well kept, the grass is cut, there's no graffiti on the abandoned buildings and there's not mounds of trash everywhere.
You must have watched a different video.
It’s such a sad social commentary that videos like this get so many views on RUclips. We all feel the same way as you do. What a shame, so much potential is lost, seemingly forever with these places rotting away. Keep up the good work!
As an OTR truck driver I drove through a lot of 'empty' towns in Texas. The young move to larger cities for work to survive. It's what it is..
Now that Men are no longer getting married? Its going to get EVEN worse. There is no reason to raise a family in the USA anymore. So down the hole it all goes.
@@MickeyMishra all by design destroy America. The old time oligarchy has take over and will make the middle class go extinct. 1%er kings ruling over 99% peasants is the new normal for America
In the long run America would have been better off under the kings and queens of England. Now they are going to take their revenge and make America far worse than it ever would have been under king george
@MickeyMishra Why WOULD we get married?
@@johncalvo1743 It use to be the greatest thing in the world seeing your Family grow. The festivities the holidays, all of it. Christmas and Halloween were a BLAST!
Then all the small things. Just like in a Blink-182 song. Its those small things that you always look back fondly on.
Today, I took my 16 year old son to get Ice cream. Best part of it was right after I ordered the Uber to the Hotel to get an italian soda, His Ice- cream cone exploded all over his hand and table from the bottom.
Had to quckly wipe the table and then wrap his hand in paper towels so we could get into the Uberwithout making a mess till we got the Hotel so he could wash up.
Cab driver and me were cracking jokes about it all the way home. Telling him to "Keep it wrap up". 😆
He even opened the door for my son so he could get out. Man, what great service this UBER driver gave us.
Then it was into Kennedy school. We laughed the whole time along with the Barista and gift shop staff about the ice cream incident.
And how it JUST happened THE SECOND I ordered the UBER and we had to rush as we had less than 2 min before it got there.
It's these moments that make it all worth it. But was it worth what I went through to get here?
😵💫😪😪*HELL #$@#$@!# NO* !!!!!! 😵😵😵😵
Out of the 5 children I raised, only 1 of them I see more then a few times a year.
In fact the other one I saw once every 6 years.
The other 3? I'm fine with never seeing again. Its just how it is.
Stuff like that makes the whole idea of getting hitched a wrong one.
I'm from small town Texas. Folks are very happy in their small towns, just FYI. They drive to the next towns over for groceries and generally live peaceful lives at a calm pace.
The nearest towns near my grandparent's farm are like that. Farmers go to pick up some little item at the family grocery/convenient or parts store, have dinner at the one of (2) two diners... If they want fancy, they drive a little farther. They aren't interested in traffic lights, nor are they necessary. Makes me a little homesick.
I bet and the crime is low that’s awesome
Exactly. This is only shocking to City people
People are commenting on this as if it's sad and dismal. I think these places are beautiful! Peaceful and happy
@@pauljohnston2008 there’s nothing beautiful about crumbled homes and junk laying all over the place throughout a town. If people kept their properties clean then it would be different.
I'm going to look this town up, I'm in North Texas, land prices around here are insane. It would be awesome to turn one of those old buildings into a home.
I already looked it up…nothing about this area is worth buying a property. It’s just not one of those places you can drop cash and expect a decent quality of life. Forsaken land.
Figures, I want to get out of the suburbs so bad I've been looking everywhere. Facts are It's not going to be cheap unfortunately.@@denver0102
I would love to see these towns grow again. I would much rather live in a small population town then places like Houston.
Go ahead, I'll help you pack.
All major cities are cesspools
@@AlexDeChristian6323 😂
Living as an outsider in a small town is tough. Not every small town is like that, but most are. Cities don’t care who your dad or grandfather are as long as you are productive.
The problem is these town cannot compete with the options for work, entertainment, etc. So how do you keep the kids there when they see all the opportunities in the big city?
Lived in west and central Texas most of my life. About every other town (every 15 miles or so) is going away as you go down the road. I think part of the reason is that wagons and old cars dictated that necessities be a little closer than they need to be now.
The mechanization of farming meant far fewer people are needed on the land, and fewer town services. Combine with almost everyone having a vehicle now to drive to larger towns for services and shopping and the tiny towns shrivel up and die.
I live in Central Texas, and towns are going away, but its because its the fastest growing region in the US. Everything between Llano and Taylor is being turned into a subdivision of Austin.
@@JohnSmith-cn4cw I also live in Central Texas. Nobody wants to live in Llano or Brownwood. Those places are still small towns. People are leaving Austin due to housing costs, crime, overcrowding and moving north to Cedar Park/Leander/Liberty Hill/Killeen/Temple.
Now there building in tornado Trac areas around Jarrell let's see how that works out
This really reminds me of Monango, ND. My great grandpa grew up there in the 1920s and 30s. Back then it had over 300 people. We went back there in 2021 to lay him to rest and there were only a few dozen people living there. I got to see the house where he grew up (and which his father built with his own hands). It hadnt been lived in since my great aunt died over 15 years ago. For some reason my older family members didn't take out the furniture and possessions. I guess they thought that at some point the house would be sold and then they would clear it out? But now it's overgrown and probably not safe to poke around in. Despite the decay I thought that Monango was a very peaceful place and we spent a nice afternoon there. There was even someone trying to repair the crumbling church at the center of town. Also there was a dog roaming the town (presumably its owner let's it wander). At first we were afraid it would attack us, but it was actually very friendly and followed us around town exploring with us.
Probably happy to see people.
It may have been that the family members weren't interested in the stuff so much as paying their respects.
PS: Sitting here on a Sunday morning reading the comments is so interesting! Sometimes I'd rather do that then read Classic Literature or the latest best seller (or even the Sunday paper which I must get to LOL). You learn more! I love hearing the stories and ideas of people who live in the towns and cities you travel through. Their perspectives are so interesting.
I agree, Joyce. :)
I agree. Reading the comments and stories is def the best part.
Decades ago some guy was proposing that we bulldoze all of these near dead towns, let them return to grassland, and let the bison come back. It sounded crazy, but seeing hundreds of places like this makes me want to reconsider. 🙁
Nature is slowly reconquering these towns.
I agree, the state or federal government should establish a program to clear these blighted houses and remover the trash. It's depressing to look at and represents a hazard, the natural beauty of the land would be much better.
This is the area of Texas on which my book, Michael's Eyes was based. Life there in the 1950s was primarily based upon the oil industry and farming and ranching. As more acreage was required to produce enough money to make a living and the oil played out, people moved on.
I live in England and have just found these videos. I'm binge watching them all and find them fascinating. This one is the saddest I've watched. All those once thriving communities abandoned.
They were once settled by English-Irish-Scots, lots of Germans, Comanche and later Mexicanos, they all look like towns in that part of the nation, nothing out there but oil, cattle and tornadoes, but I think today besides how bad they look at least they're probably peaceful and quiet.
@@paradoxstudios6639, you mean the Mexicans and Indigenous (mixed with Spanish or not) were living in Texas long before the Germans and Irish came over in the 1800's. Many people don't recognize or realize that Texas among many other now USA states was once Mexico. And before it was Mexico, it was territory claimed by Spain as much of the Americas and Caribbean later fell to the Spanish empire. 🙂
These small abandoned towns are a common sight in most states. Most were affected by a collapse of the local economy causing the residents to leave with few remaining behind.
A thing to consider is the actual size of the US in comparison. Many of these towns were likely "whistle stops" for railroads, and had little else to offer other than agriculture. The UK is much more condensed, so towns that lost their main incomes had a somewhat easier time of adapting. The collapse of coal in Wales may be a good analogy here, as many towns struggled to find a new industry. They adapted, but some of that is due to population v land space. In the US, we have far more land that affects this. Small towns, either thrive or are dying a slow death - and have been for a while now. Many were factory towns, and once the local plant closed, there was little mobility for the folks remaining. The young moved away, and the town slowly dies.
@@oldtop4682 This is true all over England. The High Streets have collapsed and the video of Texas towns could be my home town of Yeovil. True, the scale is less but I must be the last English speaker here (exaggeration I know, but you get the point.) as we have seasonal workers and cheap labour on farms who are peripatetic. It was a glove manufacturing centre but that's all gone to China. We have a helicopter company (Italian) but eventually that will move. The future for the young is grim.
My wife's family lives all around Lueders and so we are there a few times each year. I can tell you that the little store you drove past at 9:30 and I can tell you that they do in fact sell gasoline, always try to tank up when we are there. It is where a lot of the locals, farmers, quarrymen, etc. gather to talk about current events or whatever. That little store has saved us a 40 minute round trip drive to Walmart in Stamford for various items many times over the years...
Give that store all the business you can to help them stay in business! My parents used to live north of Fink, Texas (north of Pottsboro) and there was only one general store there that sold everything, and the local elementary school. Stopped there once to get me a local map and stamped on the front was "SHOP DOWNTOWN FINK"! I thought - that's Texas for ya!
Thank you for taking the time to film and to share these videos.
Hands down, this is the saddest video I have seen. I wish there were statistics on the percentage of people who are actually content and happy or have they just resigned themselves to settle for what they have. Thanks for sharing LS.
Yep its gone. Not much choice.
It was interesting in Burkett that you pointed out where a house had burned down, and then took a left on Ash Street. I can’t help but have this thought when I see a collapsed or abandoned house: when that house was first built, it was the pride of its owner. Children were probably brought home from the hospital to it. When they grew, they spent Christmases and birthdays there, and ran and played in its yard. Then the children probably went off to war, and came home not wanting anything to do with their previous lives. When the parents passed away, the once proud house was left abandoned, and reclaimed by the very Earth that gave it life.
Love your videos. As always, thanks for taking us along.
You're totally right, Jim.
I believe you hit the nail right on the head.
or its just a pure commercially sold lot that was only there to sell at 200% mark-up on construction price.
I grew up in Fisher county and I did home health wound care out of Abilene all the way to Rule, Knox City, Lueders, and a ton of tiny places between and beyond. You know, the kind of places they give directions saying, "turn left where the green water tank used to be." I adore that area and we still own the family cotton farm. Maybe with people wanting more of a rural life and being able to work online, there will be an interest in the area again. We most likely will move back to the family farm when we retire. God knows we ain't making money on cotton now or ever, but I ate that dirt as a toddler and hoed many a row of cotton growing up.
I think these town are examples of how, the amount of farmers we have needed, as a percentage of workers, has declined over the last 100 years.
Putnam, Connecticut
As a European I find these melancholy videos fascinating. They document a socio-urban collapse that would be unthinkable in our continent. I think the sheer size of America has a great deal to do with it. Small American townships seem very quickly to become isolated by a change in economic or social conditions, whereas in European countries no village is ever very far from an important town or city to which it can refer for help. For sure, we have small villages which do decline slowly, but nothing as dramatic as in these videos. The nearest European equivalent I've come across would be in Italy (where I lived for a few years), but there the abandonment of villages is usually always caused by natural disasters, earthquakes, etc - not economic vicissitudes. demographics obviously play a large part too: for its size America is massively under-populated compared to Europe. Here in the tiny island of Britain (which I think fits five times into Texas alone!) we have a population of 60 million. Anyway, just a few thoughts provoked by your extraordinary videos, for which many thanks.
these specific areas were devestated by changes in the cotton industry
Expanding on what d36williams said, all across the central US many of these declining small towns are due to long term changes in agriculture. In my part of the country (a fair jog north of TX) we also have many small towns that are just about abandoned. Farms don't need hired hands like they used to and then there was the double whammy of the depression and then WW2 saw people from small towns move to the coasts to work in the war plants. And almost nobody moved back when times were better. So it's been a long slow decline ever since. Towns that have some industry or are far enough away from other towns that they can draw on a larger area for support are doing ok, even thriving. But there's just no industry here to support a larger population like we had in decades past.
Never been to the interior of Spain huh?
Where have you been in Eorope? I watch some RUclips channels that explore downtown parts of many French towns and villages that are devoid of human activity during the daytime. They're usually there to share some minor point of interest from WW2 with their audience, and usually have difficulty finding a place to get a drink or a snack after an extensive walking tour.
You want to see desolate?
Large towns (even small cities) in Russian Far East and up north along Ob River.
Tens of thousands of people in single industry Soviet towns/cities absolutely abandoned by Moscow in early 90s. The educated and skilled left. Hospitals simply abandoned because doctors and nurses just left. Thermal electric power plants shutdown more often than operating
Water/sewer system just STOPPED.
He should visit Fred, Texas where the Entering and Leaving sign is on the same pole.
How cute! 😂😍
It's also where they have houses so small the front and back door is on the same set of hinges!
@@bthomson You don't know whether you're coming or going!😆
Folks I know just call it Spred. Spurger + Fred.
Nice job with your video tours of dying towns. I really enjoy them. I live in prosperous Seattle which is becoming too expensive for all but the richest people. Even a rare, run down decrepit home in my neighborhood would sell for many times the median home price in Moran or Burkett; the land it’s built on is worth several hundred’s of thousands of dollars. Thanks for your work!
The most amazing video, thanks for all you do
I live in one of these small towns and work side by side with the city on projects. You wont believe how much potential some of these towns have for new life. The most difficult it convincing people who already live in these towns to open business to be more self sustaining. As you’ve pointed out, property is cheap. Besides rattle snakes and hot summers, it’s not a bad place to live, lots of peace and quiet.
Oh yeah, that thing at 9:00, it’s an old cotton gin.
You have a good attitude. We need more of that.
How can you link me up to come over there with my family? We are a family of 5
@@trollolol705 A while back, I read about a couple small dead towns west of DFW being revived as retirement communities with tiny homes and manufactured housing. They were popular with those receiving lower retirement incomes that no longer afford to keep their homes or apartments.
@@trollolol705 I don't recall where those towns were located but assumed they were near cities with medical centers. I grew up in Chicagoland and was moving to Houston in '77 when I called my friends there when in Arkansas to find they just moved up to Longview. Went there instead to find it was a blue collar town in the middle of a nicer rural region so stayed there. Since then Longview has become a medical center so has been filling up with retirement and assisted living developments. The land has become more expensive due to additional housing developments so expect the small outlying towns to have retirement communities constructed inside/near their city limits since it doesn't take long to reach Longview on highways where one can travel doing 65 to 70 mph.
I won't be surprised if these towns come alive again. With all that's going on in the big cities people will want for quieter places. And some will have money too. You may be complaining later about people moving there. Would be good though if those there do a little fix up and business instead of just giving up. Maybe create a vacation spot.
You know it's bad when Dollar General won't even setup shop.
Really! 🤣
As much as we joke about DG I'm sure they are a godsend to these places! Baby diapers, milk, food! Otherwise 30 mile drives!
Very true lof the small towns all they have is valero an dollar G and a walmart 40 mins away lol
I grew up about 50 miles from Lueders, TX in Knox City, TX.
Played basketball and ran track against guys from Lueders Avoca( Consolidated School District). Never played against them in Football, as they were 6-man football. I am a 71 yr old Veteran and my home town is about half the population from the 1960’s. Knox City has ample oil production to keep it’s economy going. I’ve traveled that Tx highway 6 (the Korean War Memorial Highway) many times. Thank you for that little trip back around my old stomping grounds!
We retired right down the road in Rule.
I really enjoyed your words when you said that More people are in cemetery as compared to Town.
Of course they are?
I lived in the outback part of Australia for years around Bourke & Cunnumalla & I can tell you these areas of Australia are very similar both in the landscape & state of the townships to what you're showing there in Texas.
Yes, inner New South Wales has the same geography as Texas but our towns are not left to die, we still care! The only reason an Australian town would struggle is rising goods transport cost and the closing of coal mines but we will survive overall!
I always wondered why there were no large cities in the interior of Australia, but now it makes sense.
@@jenniferharrison8915 All the care in the world won't pay your bills. It's all about economy.
Informational. I was stationed at an Air Force base in Abilene from 68 to 71 and traveled all around that part of the country. It sure looks different now, very depressing. But, thanks for the trip down memory lane. Enlightening and depressing at the same time. Your videos are great.
So you were at Dyess huh? I stopped in a few times we were stationed up in Wichita Falls at Sheppard from 94-09. Before I retired we had a combat control team at Dyess and our headquarters was located in Washington state (McChord AFB). There are a few of those depressing towns all around TX.... cheers :)
Thank you, Rickie!
Thanks for your service.
@@leonard5606 I was an instructor at Sheppard, in transportation from 77 to 79. Really enjoyed my time there. Got degrees from Vernon Regional JC and from Wayland Baptist which really helped me out. By the way, thanks for your service.
Dyess AFB was my last assignment before retirement back in 1987. I sure loved that place and especially the folks of that area. I still have friends there that I go to visit every year or so. I lived on a property just outside the ghost town of Stith. Left there in 1990.
Great2C,that ur still truckn rite along.Thanx4all the CoolTourz2.
Love your videos!
Grateful you’re doing this. I drive for work and see these name from the main highway and wonder about their back stories. Thanks to you, I now have a glimpse into those small towns, although sad, but very informative.
Awesome!
One of the more haunting videos you've done of distant, dying America. Thirty miles (60 miles round trip) just to get gas-that's demoralizing in itself. By the way, on that almost entirely empty and rundown strip of commercial buildings constituting Putnam's center, that one place in which you asked:"is that place opened, do you think?" the answer is resoundingly yes. Had a well maintained sign reading "consignments accepted;" had posted hours of operation; and had usable looking stuff seen through the windows. Maybe one of the few kinds of businesses that might survive in such a town by attracting interstate buyers. There are people who'll drive a long way to visit a quirky consignment shop. A poignant point driving by the Burkett cemetery. The town is far more of a necropolis than a living community. Pleasurable seeing numerous dogs, horses and chickens-and one cat scooting at the edge of a squat stone church of just about the same color. Also, if I had to wager whether all of the churches shown were opened or just some, I'd go out on a limb and say they all were. There was one regarding which you expressed some doubt. Well, it had a ceiling neon light on inside. A great bridge, by the way! How can median home prices be accurately and meaningfully calculated in places with 160, 86 and 30 residents where there likely hasn't been a home sold for years.
All good questions and answers, David.
These towns have been dyin' since the end of WWII. "The Last Picture Show" was filmed in 1972 and tells a story about a dying Texas town in the 1950s.
Cybill....super hottie.
🥰🤩🥰🤩
@@willbass2869 Indeed. Scortching. And all in the service of a great film too.
Hi Joe and Family!! Great videos!!
Yeah that bridge was really cool, Joe - thanks! I think sometimes the Interstate can wreck a town rather than improve it and send business its way. There was no exit in Putnam and the 'big road' divided the town in two it seems. If they had put an exit in Putnam and built a Love's, the town would be hoppin'. PS: That tree was indeed spooky. The volunteers at the fire department must have moved away and the whole block was just left to burn down. And I guess there isn't a wrecking crew for miles.
This reminds me very much of last year when I drove from Waco to Sonora and Ft. Stockton...went through several towns that looked like this. I stopped at a couple of "stores" to get a snack and found the shelves virtually empty--kind of creepy. Nice to see someone on the swing though, at least one person is having fun.
They look dreadfully boring. Must be a hike for decent groceries.
I'm from here!!!! My sister, cousin and aunt and uncle still live here! I have many friends here. And my kids' biological father and his side of the family is all over this town. The crime is higher than your stats say bus that's because the cops don't come out here anymore. This town is becoming overrun by seasonal workers from Mexico. Drugs have taken over this town and alcohol is at it's highest as well. It used to be such a peaceful quiet town when I first moved there 12-13ish years ago.
Door dash? 🤣
Yeah, I was wondering whether drugs and crime were rampant in these places.
How do you survive in a place like this?? Omg. I would be terrified to walk out my front door.
When the only businesses left are a liquor store and a church that's not a good sign.
Thank you so mych for taking the time and trouble showing us these places before they totally disappear. Sad in a way but thats how it is.
Wow these are some pretty Awesome videos … If I was a few years younger I saw a whole lot of fixer - uppers that looked like they would pay off with a little work . I love these kind of videos ‘ I often think of the history & what kind of stories behind these long past towns that have pretty much lived their life..
Moran is where my grandpa grew up. He left at 14, in a freight car to Lubbock. He got a job pushing wheelbarrows full of concrete, bricks and mortar building the 1st bank, until he made enough money to buy a horse and saddle. After punching cattle for a big ranch 75 mi NW of Lubbock for 5 yrs he was paid in cattle and started his own outfit leasing grazing pastures from absentee landlords on the eastern fringe of the XIT Ranch during the period it was being sold off by the British corporation that were deeded ten counties in the Panhandle, in exchange for the cash to build the pink granite state capital in Austin.
My mom said her dad seldom visited Moran - the women in his family were quite religious and he got tired of hearing all the reasons he was going to hell. Too bad you skipped the cemeteries. Bet there were plenty of Merritts buried in it. I believe there was a little oil boom in the 1930s. He went back to Moran to settle his dad's estate. He'd been successful enough that he was able to buy out all the fighting factions of the family and evict them from the property to sell all of it. I don't believe he ever went back.
I wish I had stopped there to look around 30 yrs ago.
That is a fascinating story! I hope you're preserving such stories and photos for you family. 😊
Dude nice story!
I was reading about Moran in Wikipedia, and it said that Moran won recognition as one of the most important sources of fossil fuels in Texas. This was in 1913. During the next 15 years, Moran had an oil and gas boom with population reaching 5000-10000 during the 1920's, but the boom was pretty much over by the 1930's. Its hard to believe that even 1000 people lived there much less 10000. That means that many of the homes that were there have been gone for many decades.
@kd5you1 Some of the houses in a declining city will fall into disrepair and be torn down to avoid tax liability, but there's also always been a market for moving houses to a new location in TX. Normally houses "to be moved" must fit size and shape criteria. Distance houses can be moved is quite an important factor, as miles can run up the cost. Crossing major highways and electrical transmission lines matter too. All factors that limit well built, trophy homes from having a 2nd incarnation. In older towns that grew to the point that major artery streets needed to be widened some old 1930s houses were an amazing historical archeological study in home construction. Outer and inner walls were clad with beautiful 1"x12" hard yellow pine boards installed on the diagonal. The houses were so heavy only the smaller ones, or those that could be dissected could be moved any distance. Some sat in home mover parking lots for over a decade. They were unsellable.
@@rt3box6tx74 Yes I remember in my old neighborhood were an old house would be there one day and gone the next... moved overnight by a moving crew. Those particular houses were on cinder blocks I believe or something similar. Our house was fairly newer than those & built in the 1960's on a foundation. Years after we moved away, it was demolished to make room for a new house.
Interesting that you visited Lueders on my mother’s 89th birthday…she was raised in Lueders.
Happy Birthday Dianna's mom!🎂🍰💐
Happy Birthday wishes!!!
Happy birthday to your mom. God Bless her and all of you!
The remnants of human activity - warms the heart
Tornado's and bad weather can cause a town to collapse like that. When some of the main infrastructure gets destroyed or damaged and they can't afford to repair / replace it, then they just let it sit. A lot of those derelict homes had trailers and mobile homes next to them. That may be what they moved into after their homes were damaged/destroyed.
Your videos are eye opening and shocking! I had no idea of the degree of decline of US towns. It’s so sad. As a Canadian, who shares this continent with you, I had no idea…
There are RUclips videos of abandoned places in Canada. The town with population 85 with a median age of 65, how sad to be old and live alone in this dry, desolate place.
@loveydovey You are absolutely correct. This sort of decline can happen anywhere and I will certainly look for those videos. I grew up in Australia and I remember driving through the remains of small country towns. But it still shocks me that this can happen in the US.
@@ozgirl45 its called work nearby.... the majority of small towns exist in my state still due to most of them being off the interstate, generally speaking hookups are still fine and modern as long as you stay in the pockets of at least 1k due to 1 major broadband provider that has the state contract (essentially they have exclusive contract with the state and provide hookups for all government offices which means they have themselves subsidized by the state to ensure we have broadband in even our most rural towns)
Bad government. America will look like this in the future.
We have places like this in Europe where local industry closes down an people leave... only people don't leave stuff behind.... like anything! People come and take all the timber to sell as firewood, all the cable gets striped from the buildings and every single bit of metal gets weighed in for scrap. You would never see abandoned vehicles. You can tell this is America.... even the poor leave money on the table.
It breaks my heart to see these rural communities just disintegrating. I’m from a small Texas town on the OK border and I’m waiting for your arrival there. I know you will find like conditions in a town that once had a population of 12,000 with a thriving commercial center. I would be interested in reading a study of how this all happened. Of course, I have my thoughts about it. Thank you for maintaining the dignity of these places that were/are home to many.
Are you close to Lake Texoma ? Just guessing your town , I'm at Tuttle , about 20 miles south of OKC . 8 ) Was guessing Kingston ?
We know how it happened, it happened by design. Wealthy people who are always trying to explain to us that there's a path forward, something better beyond.
I don't want their "beyond" I want simplicity. I want peace. I want this life. 😊
That area boomed after oil and gas fields were discovered there then started to peter out in the 1930's when the fields were near depletion. Their farming and livestock operations took a major hit during the prolonged drought in the 1950's which made more people leave. Folks still lived there but their kids saw no future in staying the region so left. Now all that's left are their aging parents and the few that have local jobs.
@@ericamiles666 wha wha wha. Bet you always are the victim
@@yooper2186 never realise you're the victim
Hey Nic and Joe- - this is a very clean portrait of some country that I respect. Blaine D., Aubrey/TX
I lived in Abilene for years and watched those towns slowly get worse. Moved away and every time we visit family, it seems to get more and more depressing in many of those towns. Awesome job btw.
From Lueders, the nearest Walmart SuperCenter is 17.2 mi., about 20 mins away in Stamford, TX. From Moran, 27.0 mi., about 31 mins away in Breckenridge. From Putnam, 24.5 mi., about 22 mins away in Eastland. From Burkett, 36.4 mi., about 42 mins away in Brownwood.
I drive around the country with my son.... Not as much as you and I'm into Stats of each town n city.... What I've noticed is if there's no hospital, doctors, dentists, drug stores, food stores the towns will die off.... People don't go to doctors n don't live long especially men.... This isn't just Texas it's all states.... Gotta have these basic services to keep a town alive.... If ya living in a town and start to see these businesses leaving sell your house and get out before ya can't sell your house.... Again I see this all over our country....... Keep them coming.......Be Well.
Well said. No * services* ==== no life
I love traveling with my son, too. I’m glad you’re doing the same thing. Safe travels to you and your son
@@denisesmith2745 , And safe travels to You and your Son..
Yes, but the people left first (that is, a critical mass of them).
@@MegaBait1616 Thank you!! It’s been great meeting you!!
These towns were once the center of commerce for the area, but due to changes in the economy and transportation infrastructure they are no long necessary or viable. Baird, for example, 20 miles east of Abilene on I-20 which you certainly drove through on your travels in West Texas, was a railroad town. Highway 80 (the major east-west road across the southern US) passed right through the middle. Every day several trains and hundreds of automobiles and trucks passed through. Then, when steam locomotives gave way to diesel-electric after WW II trains no longer needed to stop in Baird to take on water and coal. The interstate highway was built in the 1960's and all the heavy traffic that once passed right through downtown went around Baird. Lastly, the small farms and ranches that were the backbone of the region's economy were consolidated into large commercial operations or else went bust. There's simply no reason for the town to be there anymore.
Yup every city or town has (or had) an economic reason for existing. Once that reason is gone if a new economic driver isn’t found it’s just a long countdown to ghost town status.
This is such a great idea. Thanks for documenting this. I'm just like you in that these old towns fascinate me and sort of have a poignancy that's hard to describe. There's a great song by Mary Chapin Carpenter called "I Am a Town". It captures a lot of this vibe of a dying town.
Wonderful mesquite trees in all these towns. Mesquite wood burns slow. Create problems for water lines as roots can grow 50 feet or more underground to seek out water in dry westt Texas. Most of others I observed were post oak. The mesquite tree branches divide up near the ground.
Post oak is my wood of choice for smoking brisket.
Is it normal for most of the trees to have no leaves on them? Coming from up north they look dead to me but I'm sure they are not.
I live in Austin Texas and I’m just amazed how many towns are around. And it makes me sad that towns are becoming abandoned..
These houses were built when farming and ranching was a way of life, those houses were new and there was a Community of some sort.
Young kids leave here for jobs and a better way of life, and the older die off and there you go, the town dies.
Cities is where the industry is now, and look at the way industry has changed. Cities are a rat race and most don't know their neighbors.
I consider myself lucky, as I have lived both worlds. I find the smaller places more friendly and calming, and you learn about how everything works which will be beneficial if the "shtf" in the future.
But the drawback is you can't make a living and you have to drive to shop. However, there is amazon!!
As a Brit, I can’t believe these videos, I’ve watched several of Mississippi, Arkansas and now this one in Texas, is this what small town rural life in America is really like, it’s like a third world country.
The politicians of both colours it seems have a lot to answer for.
I live here in Central Texas, I can tell you there are a lot of small towns that have turned into ghost towns for a multitude of reasons. For example there is towns in south texas that had their "Hay Day" when there was a lot of major farms where they had farming colonies down there. I have a distant cousin back in the early 1900's where the whole family worked on farms and they would go to town for supplies and to gather at the local dance halls on the weekend. Those days are gone along with the farms since now grocery chains have contracts with certain farms in the southern valley of Texas. So those small towns just die. But just because the small town die's does not mean everyone has moved away. Since most of the roads here even in the back country are 70mph to get to the next big town only takes sometimes 30min to an hour max. So you will see mostly ranchers, hunting leases and retirees living out in the back country more than anything. So just because you see a small ghost town from the early 1900's does not mean much. There is still a lot going on in Rural Texas.
This has actually been a common occurrence throughout the short history of the USA. Our society incentivises searching for better opportunities over establishing sustainable communities.
It is like living in a 3rd world country in some areas. You there isn’t much work in those rural towns so people leave.
There's not much for politicians to answer for though. These towns have no means to support themselves, and for a lot of them the closest city is 30+ miles away. When you're in poverty you typically don't have the money to buy a car to commute to a bigger town. About the only thing the government offers is SNAP/TANF/EBT and I'd imagine a large portion of people in these towns take advantage of it. With that being said, I don't think they deserve it. These towns have a charm to them, I've worked in almost all of them. Plus, one other thing to consider. Texas is MASSIVE. I'm not kidding when I say I've worked in towns where the closest city was over 50 miles away. At that point, the town is truly unsustainable. About the only thing that may revive them is if they get great Internet infrastructure and people that are work from home move to them. If my wife's job wasn't in person, I would have moved further away from the DFW Metroplex to somewhere like this. The only downside to that is these towns tend to have insane property tax rates too. For instance there's a town about 25 miles west of where I am. Beautiful little town (they do actually have a Walmart) that my wife and I seriously considered for a while. What stopped us was the property tax rate was around 5.5-6%. Double what it is where we currently are with a lot less cities close by. I could write a book on how these towns could potentially be revived, but I doubt anyone would ever put the effort and money into doing so.
im sure there are poor areas in europe as well. You seem to think this is every town.
I absolutely love these videos!! My last job took me to so many of these towns you show. I live about 45 minutes west of Fort Worth and used to love driving to all of these areas. I know to a lot of people these towns are depressing, but I absolutely loved them. Whenever I get older and retire I'd love to buy some land somewhere out west like this and enjoy a peaceful life.
Thank you!
My parents grew up in the area during the 40s-50s. Lueders used to be a hopping town with a movie theater and dance hall. My grandparents lived in Denton Valley. Now that they and my great aunts and uncles are gone, it's too painful to go back. It makes me so sad.
I share your pain Sheila. Here in West Central Victoria, Australia I am the very last man standing from both sides of our family going back to 1853. Everybody else has moved on or died of old age. I kept the house and some land around it because I can't bear to let it go and check in on it when I can. The house is large but the silence is deafening and makes me deeply melancholic when I recall all the laughter of family and friends, parties, Sunday dinners, the out of the blue visitors, the phone calls and the never-ending discussions about the business of farming. I deeply understand precisely why its too painful for you. The trick is though never forget them, never turn away from them and always speak with them. They never truly leave us. Stay well.
Love your vids man. Btw I would really be interested in short sort of "interviews" with people that still live in these towns, like what they do all day and why they havnt moved maybe. drive-by interviews :D
Great idea! Would be really interesting..
I think that the interviews would be the most valuable thing. Pictures of old buildings are cool but without any actual accounts about the town its just a snapshot
@@35mm21 I like the way you put that! 🤗
Would also be interesting to see how the remaining folks make a living (those who have to work at least) many may be living off Social security, VA Pensions etc)
@@RMRM1234 The ones who work probably drive to a job in another town.
Cool adventure. In the first town, I couldn't find anything for sale. Last one, that is a cool bridge.
I remember driving through Podunk, Oklahoma back in the 70's and seeing a home "for sale, or will trade for pickup truck".
I love these kind of vids. Thanks for this, can't wait to watch it. Keep rockin it. Great work.
I love this stuff. Thanks for sharing your adventures with us.
Great video as usual.
Another great road trip, though it's sad to see the condition of the places. And another great cat, you must love cats, we've ourselves got Ginger, a good mouser at our farm
I'm strangely drawn to towns like this. I've lived in a few but nothing this far gone.
When you live in tiny towns, it does bring more of a sense of community. Everybody knows everybody.
I would love to somehow bring a little life back to these towns. Like a cafe...
Thanks for sharing ❤
Putnam, Connecticut
A cafe in a poverty stricken town where the residents are all old women; with an occasional customer passing through town looking for restroom and gasoline on weekdays is bound to throw away a ton of food and not stay in business very long.
I grew up in a small town, there would be nobody to date.
@@misterd6879 And if you did date on Friday night, EVERYONE in town knew what happened including your mama, and her mama by noon on Saturday! Yeah, small towns have pluses and minuses lol. Still, I plan to move back to a small town in retirement. Knowing everyone can be a plus...but as a young person....
I’m from a small Texas town that has thrived and actually tripled in size in the last 40 years. I’m amazed that people remain in some of these dying towns. I know it’s their past and their friends are there but it must be somewhat depressing.
There are no friends left here. Our big beautiful Baptist and Methodist churches built in the post war economic boom are empty on Sundays. We no longer have pastors. When the roof gets bad our churches will begin the process of decay.
I'm in the heart of the two richest agricultural counties in TX. White flight due to consequences of the Reagan Amnesty that overran our small town with people who prefer part time employment as long as there are social programs adequate to help them along when they choose not to work, killed our thriving community. Businessmen who could afford to drive 25 or 50 miles daily moved their young families to bigger towns where the education system wasn't bogged down teaching in dual languages, or teaching English instead of history, geography, Literature, Chemistry, etc. Most entrepreneur businesses owners who moved their families, but kept their businesses ended up selling out to some agricultural conglomerate within 5 yrs. The new owners set about killing off their local competitors with unethical and illegal business practices which result in abandonment by customers.
Farm and ranchland owner/operators are the last group to follow the trend that's been underway now for 40 yrs. There are no babies born in our county. The county hospital had to close down the ob ward because of decades of no-pay by customers with bills that were uncollectable.
Families from this county travel 140 mile round trip for normal healthcare. It becomes too much for our elderly who eventually move closer to their doctors. Some residents have a home in the original county and another in the city. The most common reason for senior citizens leaving my town of 1500 population is to be nearer to a complete healthcare system, while our county hospital has morphed into a clinic for sore throats and runny noses, cases of ringworm, etc. For emergency situations they do triage, consisting of a decision whether patients travel by ambulance or helicopter to out-of-county centers.
Our hospital board bribes idealistic young docs and older docs needing to slow down in the last 5 yrs of their long career to move here by offering to pay off a portion of their medical school debt, or offering a limited work schedule for older docs. None of them come here planning to stay, and none come back. They seldom participate in community activities and be sure to get out before their children pass 3rd grade.
There are some excellent docs who pass through, but they move on after their contract is up. With the law of averages, having this revolving door of medical professionals passing through we get some nut cases too. It's been a long time since we've had a real bad one, but most have aspirations of sainthood as a result of providing treatment to the low income community. It takes them about 3 yrs to outgrow that delusion. We get some who are probably excellent docs, but have problems with handling stressful situations. I went in for followup blood test to check iron levels and quickly became the doc's therapist. I spent a 15 min visit listening to him unload about a nursing home patient he expected to perish that day. He went on and on, and evidently didn't give clear orders to the lab regarding my 2 vials of blood. 2 weeks later the lab tech called asking me to return to have more blood drawn. Since she used her language barrier as an excuse to withhold from me what happened to the original 2 vials I declined the invitation. There were about 3 subsequent followup calls I ignored. This is the typical narrative shared by residents using local clinic services.
After 2, 3, 4 decades of losing a couple of businesses from the county per year you wind up with the Cloward-Piven effect. A couunty with 2 thriving car dealerships, 15 independent car repair shops, 5 appliance sales and repair shops, 6 grocery stores, 5 lumber yards, 4 pharmacies, 5 dental clinics, 4 dry cleaners, 6 department stores and another 4 dress shops, 6 agricultural equipment sales and repair businesses, 6 Ariel applicators, 6 ag fertilizer companies, 10 gas stations... you get the picture?
The Reagan Amnesty was a trial run. We gradually forgot about the confrontations we faced in daily life during that period of "assimilation" aka, adjustment by us.
The current invasion's consequences won't play out over 40 yrs. It'll be that Warp Speed thing we heard about.
Too bad - our brilliant politicians have screwed us all by giving away America.
@@rt3box6tx74 I don’t think Reagan’s Amnesty is to blame. I think it’s lack of vision for the future and poor planning of the city councils. Too many wanted it to remain the same and closed. Children grew up and because there wasn’t a change in providing a viable job market, they left and the parents, grandparents, and aged died off.
Maybe the problem of those cities is not the highway but the speed limit in the US. In Germany a lot of people drive to work 50-100miles but with average car's speed of 120mph or more they dont need to move to big cities
@Gabrocha II Small rural towns aren't candidates for the type of job creation you advocate.
There are all the blue collar jobs anyone could want in this county. There are farm jobs, ranch jobs, truck driving jobs, dairy jobs, cattle feedlot jobs, grain co jobs, lumber yard jobs, bank jobs, convenience store jobs, gas station jobs, car wash jobs, vehicle repair jobs, teaching jobs, restaurant jobs, insurance agency jobs, but almost none of those offer a 40 hour work week and time for golf or lounging by a pool in the evening.
That city planning garbage very often leads to jail time for those who push it in the larger towns. Some council member gets greedy, a bribe happens and taxpayers eat the bill.
Capitalism can happen without involvement of busybody leaders trying to push unnatural growth. Growth has been grossly oversold as guaranteed community prosperity. Without the tax base to pay for tax abatement that lures industry in, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
Our county offered 10 year tax abatement to dairies who were moving in from CA & AZ. Now 80% of their workers are from neighboring counties who don't compensate us for taking jobs meant for locals, and this county's taxpayers are paying higher county taxes because of it.
My children were victims of educational deficiencies caused by our rural schools being overrun with non-English-speaking children and parents overwhelmed by culture shock. I paid for about 3 extra semesters of their post high school education to catch up. I helped a few men and their wives with their amnesty paperwork. I don't believe any of them finished and became citizens. It seemed they feared they might not be able to return to their beloved homeland if they became American citizens. They merely allowed me to sweat bullets over their applications to remain in our employ for a year or two. I swore I'd never devote my time and kindness to a n other.
Hey buddy! Thanks for the information!! I'm packing up and heading to Putnam!!! Sounds like heaven!!!
I was born and raised in Abilene, Tx. A lot of those ghost towns you went through I either lived there or partied there. Those little towns will give you the creeps at night. It’s crazy how fast they are disappearing in todays age.
There's also a whole series of posts on RUclips about people, often retired, who are living in their cars. It's a puzzle to me that no one sees a way to have two problems solve each other. Condemn the usable abandoned property and make it available to the car dwellers and perhaps some life can be restored to some towns.
I’ve wondered that same thing, drop off a few hundred homeless folks and they’d have an instant community
The land is owned by private individuals who dont want poor people ruining the value
@@MeadowDay
the problem with that is they would continue to be poor. they stay in the city hoping they land a job.
You’re right not much opportunity in a desolate area. Slam a factory in there then it might “liven” up
These people wouldn’t be interested to live in rural Texas...
I grew up in Montana, and on the eastern side of the Rockies, you find abandoned homesteads all over the place. I once found a Sears catalog from the early 1900s in an ancient refrigerator in one of these abandoned homesteads. Rural America has a lot of abandoned and nearly abandoned towns. Shit's crazy
I have often thought about buying up the abandoned properties in these towns and trying to restore the buildings that can be restored or demolish and rebuild in similar style buildings, but modern inside.
I grew up in Northern WI decades ago. There are entire towns that are completely reclaimed by nature to include the roads. Most are now in state parks but some are just completely abandoned on private property that has been on the unpaid tax rolls for decades. Thousands of acres of abandoned towns forgotten to history. Once iron and old growth tree booms expired during the last hundred years or so people just got up and left. Some homes still have the table set like a person will come home.
I grew up in alot of this small towns, we were migrants ,so we moved alot. It brings back memories , great memories .Thank you
Have a great day everyone
You too RP!
I was born in Coleman, Texas…in the area you are covering today.
Since I was planning to be buried in the Family Plot, I was hoping you’d find the town of Coleman to be functional.
Thanks for your great documentaries!
Dave
Good topic. Lots of places you can go throughout the USA and find dying towns.
Cool. I love TEXAS. New Texas towns to explore. Thanks for the tour.
i came across your video and it caught my attention as i live in Texas, but in San Antonio. this is heartbreaking and to see so many abandon homes and buildings. but the heartbreaking thought is this could happen to any of us, especially now. thanks for sharing and drive safely
Thank you, Sue!
I lived in Abilene, Texas, in the 80's when I was in the military. I remember these small towns outside of Abilene, especially Moran, which hosted a 5k race that I competed in.
When you first pulled into Burkett, that ranch style home in the right looked fairly nice.
A great video. Your videos are so engaging and interesting, and it's so fascinating to hear the back-stories and statistics about these old towns, but also sad. It's lovely to spot the occasional kitty cat, too !! Thank you so much for sharing these, and for your time and hard work. 😊
Thank you, CL! :)
G'day LS, its sad to see the demise of small towns in the US it's happening here in Australia also on a smaller scale and at a slower rate. As a member of our local historical society I find it fascinating to be able to see before and after images of buildings thanks.
thank you, that was fun.
Lueders was once famous for it's limestone would wide and had oil refinery. The town started it downfall when the refinery burned down. I remember going out there for family reunion in the summer.. as far back as I remember the town never had more the 220 population. My grandfather had a feed store there grandmother ran their laundry mat. My uncle at one time has the small store too. As a kid would go to the cafe and get a hamburger that my great-aunt would make for my cousin and I.
I discovered basically a Ghost town right on the interstate last time I traveled through West Texas. Kent TX is basically a Ghost town. The post office closed a few years ago. I don't believe there's anybody left. There was a convenience store gas station open but it closed as well.
I love your channel. Have you ever interviewed locals in a public place for a video? If you dont record it you could talk about the interview as you drive. That would be so interesting.
This question comes up literally every video. Says he just doesn’t have enough time to cover as much as he does if he had to stop and talk to people…I don’t blame him…
Interviewing People In Poor & Ghost Towns Can Be Risky To Do. Driving Through Is Enough Risk To Take, On A Wing & A Prayer🙏. The Way Lord Drives Through Would Not Appear To Be Looking Like A Bill Collector Or Tax Collector To Those Living In Their Homes, Right Off The Bat, He Keeps On Traveling Through.
I have driven past all of these old towns driving around the area for work. There are so many little old towns like this between Fort Worth, Abilene, and San Angelo. I’ve wanted to check them out too, but never take the time.
Very good, thanks, my part of the world n my kind of town if I had any desire to live in a town.