The 15 Creepiest Abandoned Places in California

These pit stops from the past offer spooky sights to see.

California doesn’t have the kind of haunted architectural history you’ll find in Greece or Egypt, or, hell, even New England, but it has been around long enough to experience its fair share of booms and busts, natural- and human-caused disasters, disappearing resources, and just plain old bad breaks. All that unluckiness resulted in bizarre places that have fallen into ruin or decay due to the whims of nature, time, and neglect. From old mining towns to a WWI ship that never saw action to a Los Angeles zoo to a waterpark in the desert, read on to discover 15 abandoned places in California that, thanks to a lack of human interference, have transformed into areas that are utterly eerie but also eerily captivating.

Randsburg Ghost Town, CA
Flickr/Don Graham

Kern County
Nearly 3,000 miners and their families flocked to “Rand Camp” after gold was discovered there in 1895, starting as a tent city and then growing into a town with over 300 buildings, including churches, a general store, a bunch of saloons, and even an opera house (fancy!). Unfortunately, a small fire broke out in 1897, followed by another one a few months later that destroyed half of the town. Still, the Rand Mine was said to produce more silver than any other mine in California until it was shut down in 1929 due to a lack of profitability. Today, the living ghost town is home to a slew of abandoned buildings, as well as a couple that remain up-and-running, like a general store with a working soda fountain built in 1904, a one-room schoolhouse that kids still go to (up to third grade), that aforementioned opera house, old churches, and a bunch of other buildings and old equipment in various states of arrested decay. There’s even an old inn (that was once a theater) where you can stay for the night that, based on the photos, is guaranteed to give you the creeps in the best way possible.

Nevada City
There’s a tragic story behind this abandoned hospital on the outskirts of Nevada City that was built in 1860 as a private hospital and grew in size over the years with more wings added as the county’s population surged—the oldest part predates almost everything in Nevada City. It was in continuous use until the mid-1970s and in the early ‘80s became a prison for low-risk inmates due to overcrowding in the county jail. Later, the building was the site of the town’s Behavioral Health Department, and this is where the story turns very grim.

In 2001, Scott Thorpe, a client of the outpatient mental health clinic who suffered from paranoia and agoraphobia and had resisted hospitalization attempts by his family, fatally shot 19-year-old Laura Wilcox, a college student who was working there over her winter break, and Pearlier Mae Feldman, a mental health caregiver. Thorpe was found not guilty by reason of insanity and, in 2002, California created “Laura’s Law,” a state law that allows for court-ordered assisted outpatient treatment. The building has been totally abandoned for over 15 years and is overgrown, rapidly decaying, covered in graffiti, and, frankly, looks like something straight out of a horror movie. However, considering its heartbreaking past (and the fact that it’s private property—a developer bought it with plans to convert it into housing, though he’s faced opposition), it’s best approached with reverence (or legally, probably not at all).

Elsinore Naval and Military Academy
Flickr/Timothy Sulllivan

Lake Elsinore
Though it was originally constructed to be the Southern California Athletic and County Club in the late 1920s, this building only saw the likes of tennis whites and post-golf martinis for a few years. Instead, because of financial issues, it closed and reopened in 1933 as an all-boys military school attended by the sons of wealthy people, who would grow up to join fancy country clubs and sip post-golf martinis. The school closed in 1977 and now sits in disrepair, but not so much that you can’t still appreciate the grandeur and—if you can get inside—the former dorm rooms, offices, mess hall, and more. Oh, and yes, it’s haunted. Allegedly.

ballarat
Flickr/mlhradio

Ballarat
In 1899, the gold mining town of Ballarat had 500 residents. Today it has one. Ballarat popped up right as California’s gold mining heyday was starting to wind down. It had seven saloons, three hotels, a bank, a school, a jail, and a morgue, but by 1917, the post office closed, and only a few people remained. In the 1960s, it was visited by Charles Manson and members of his cult who lived nearby on Barker Ranch and left their graffiti all over the town, as well as a 1942 green Dodge that still sits on the roadside. You can also still find the crumbling remains of several adobe structures (there was no timber for houses in this desert town) and the cemetery, and some wild (but friendly) donkeys, but the most interesting stop is the wooden shack that serves as the incorporated town’s general store. Stop in for one of only a few items sold: soda, beer, and (allegedly) moonshine.

Hobbitown
Flickr/Brenna

Phillipsville
Once upon a time, you only had to go to Northern California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park to walk through J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Built in the mid-1970s, “Hobbiton, USA” was a roadside attraction that paid tribute to The Hobbit via lumpy cement statues of characters and building tableaus and button-activated speakers to explain which part of the book you were seeing. It shut down in 2009, and a landslide destroyed most of the remains, but if you look closely, you can still find Gandalf standing next to the green doors of Bilbo Baggins’ hobbit-hole, as well as the remnants of other hobbit dwellings. Get a two-for-one experience by also visiting the Living Chimney Tree, a 78-foot tall redwood that was hollowed out by a fire in 1914. You can actually go inside of the 12.5-foot wide base and look up and see the sky.

salton sea
Flickr/el-toro

Thermal
In the spring of 1905, an irrigation canal caused the Colorado River to flood and fill an ancient dry lakebed with water, effectively creating a new lake named the Salton Sea. It should have eventually dried up, but the farmers kept letting excess water from the river flow into the lake, and in the 1950s, the “Salton Riviera” became an incredibly popular getaway (more popular than Yosemite) where people went to swim and fish. The only problem? This accidental lake didn’t have an outflow, which meant no natural stabilization system. So by the 1970s, it became saltier than seawater and contaminated by runoff, which meant almost all of the fish died, as well as the birds who depended on them for food. Dead fish carcasses replaced the throngs of tourists on the beach, and by the 1990s, when the water started to recede, resulting in clouds of toxic dust from the lake bed that have resulted in an asthma rate of 22% in surrounding communities compared to the national average of 8%. Pretty much everyone fled the scene. Now, the beaches surrounding it are home to those aforementioned fish carcasses, boarded-up motels, and abandoned buildings. There is an effort to improve conditions, but basically, if you want to know what it will look like after the apocalypse, this is the only place you need to visit.

rock-a-hoola waterpark
Flickr/el-toro

Newberry Springs
Californians love to ignore the fact that a desert is, by definition, a place that lacks water, which is why no one should be surprised that in the 1950s, a businessman named Bob Byers built a private waterpark in the middle of the Mojave Desert for just his extended family to enjoy. It opened to the public in the 1960s, but dwindling crowds forced its closure in 1990. That wasn’t the end of the water park where there’s very little water, though. It reopened in 1998 after millions of dollars were spent adding tons of new features, but when an employee sued for $4.4 million after going down one of the slides into an “inadequately filled pool,” resulting in paralysis, the waterpark closed for good. Still, skateboarders and graffiti artists who have no problem ignoring the “No Trespassing” signs and artists like Ke$ha and BTS, who both filmed music videos there in the past few years, still used the space. Unfortunately, an arsonist also ignored those no trespassing signs, and a few of the structures were destroyed in 2018. A private firm bought it with plans to rebuild it starting in 2022, but as of summer 2021, it’s back on the market, which means it’s up for grabs for anyone with an affinity for lazy rivers and $11 million in the bank.

north bloomfield ghost town
Flickr/Larry Myhre

Malakoff Diggins Historic State Park
North Bloomfield was originally called “Humbug City” because miners who settled there in 1951 did not strike gold. However, a few years later, hydraulic methods helped a second wave of miners find enough gold to justify settling there. That’s when the post office said the town name had to be changed because there were just too many other towns named “Humbug.” The townsfolk went for Bloomfield next, but that was also taken. So they threw a North in front of it. It turns out miners weren’t the most creative when it came to naming places, but that’s okay because they were rich, hopefully. The town grew to over 2,000 people and had eight saloons, five hotels, three lodging houses, and even a few breweries. Eventually, thanks to lawsuits in 1884, hydraulic mining came to an end, and Humbug City-turned-Bloomfield-turned-North Bloomfield became an abandoned ghost town not much later. Today, it’s one of the most well-preserved ghost towns in the state, with the church, school, barbershop, fire department, and other buildings still standing, which lends itself to maximum eeriness in the best way possible. Want to see for yourself? It sits inside a scenic State Park in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and daily tours are offered in the summer.

Flickr/Miles Sabin

Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest
Mystery abounds when it comes to the Chemung Mine's sordid past. What we do know: 1) It served the town of Masonic (basically as far east as you can go from the Bay Area before you hit Nevada) from 1909 to 1938, 2) its owner was allegedly thrown into a mine shaft for cheating his employees, and 3) his ghost is not super happy about it, though he seems to save his rage for Saturday nights. It’s also easy to access if visiting abandoning mines is your thing (you can even crawl through some of the tunnels), just be careful not to fall into any open shafts.

Bayshore Roadhouse
Photo by Evan Thompson for Thrillist

San Francisco
Built between 1907 and 1910, Bayshore's brick roundhouse was used to house and service steam locomotives on their way into SF. As the Southern Pacific line grew, so did the Bayshore facilities. At one point, there were 25 outbound tracks, 39 inbound tracks, and even a hospital for the 3,000 employees. Unfortunately, the rise of diesel engines meant steam facilities became obsolete, and the roundhouse was used for storing diesel trains from 1958 until it was entirely abandoned in 1982. A fire in 2001 demolished half of what was left of the roof of the roundhouse, but the bones of the structure are still intact and covered with colorful graffiti, which you’ll only be able to see up close and personal if you ignore the “No Trespassing” signs and aren’t scared of a little barbed wire fencing. While there were once over 200 roundhouses in California, Bayshore's is the last standing brick roundhouse in the state, though perhaps not for too much longer as there are plans to transform it into a housing and commercial development. Allegedly, we may see ground being broken in five years or so.

Flickr/Samantha Stott

Los Angeles
Opened in 1912 with a bare-bones budget and a whopping 15 animals and closed in 1966 due to the opening of the much fancier Los Angeles Zoo, the abandoned site of the Griffith Park Zoo or the Old Los Angeles Zoo as most people now call it still features the ruins of animal enclosures some of which were so shoddy that smaller animals were known to escape from them quickly, plus a couple of bears during a flood in 1934. There are additional cages, and large animal exhibits that housed lions, tigers, and bears are also available to view. You can explore all of them, legally, even, and some of the cave enclosures even have picnic tables and grills, so you can get a good idea of what it was like to be a caged animal in a zoo in the mid-1900s, although hopefully without the side of stress and depression.

Flickr/Indecent Exposure

Aptos
Launched in 1919 (too late to see service in WWI, even though that’s why it was built) and retired just 10 years later, the SS Palo Alto was a concrete ship that was supposed to serve as a tanker. Unfortunately, concrete ships fell out of favor after the war. So instead, she was towed to Aptos, where the Seacliff Amusement Corporation built a pier leading out to her and refitted her as an amusement ship, with amenities including a dance floor, a swimming pool, a café, and games of chance, including, allegedly, a few below-deck games that could be played for actual money while sipping cocktails during Prohibition. In 1932, after just two summer seasons, the company went bankrupt, and she was stripped of all the fun stuff, sold to the state for $1, and left acting as an artificial reef/dance floor for local marine life next to the weirdest fishing pier in the state. As abandoned ships tend to do, it deteriorated over the years, but winter storms in 2016 and 2017 pushed the wreck on its starboard side, broke its rear half-open, and tore the stern off. Then, the iconic fishing pier that led to the ship was dealt its final blow during the wild winter storms of 2023 and had to be demolished. A new pier is in the works, but a lot of cleanup will need to happen first.

Fannette Island tea house
Photo by Grant Marek for Thrillist

Lake Tahoe
The only island in Lake Tahoe, Fannette still houses the stone shell of a one-time tea house built in the late 1920s by Lora Knight, the clearly super-rich lady who owned Vikingsholm—a 38-room castle along the Emerald Bay shore. After arriving on the island via motorboat, Mrs. Knight and guests would be served tea in the 16-by-16-foot room that was outfitted with a small corner fireplace, large oak table, and four oak chairs for a rustic yet charming appearance. Today, you can get there by kayak, jet ski, or any other floating device that transports humans. It’s just a short climb to the top—and some incredibly truly one-of-a-kind views.

Flickr/Alex Weimer

Bodie
In 1880, Bodie was California's third most populous city. Today, it has a population of zero since the one-time mining town-turned-ghost town was slowly deserted as the supply of gold dwindled and the wintertime sub-zero temps and white-out conditions no longer had reason to be endured. By 1914, Bodie was almost completely abandoned, though a few stayed on (the post office operated until 1942). Today, 100 structures remain, including the old general store, the Methodist church, a saloon, a bank vault, and the cemetery. It’s now a National Historic Landmark and state park, and you can pay $8 to check out the town, preserved in a state of remarkable arrested decay.

Donner Pass Summit Tunnel
Flickr/ChiefRanger

Truckee
The first railroad line to traverse the Sierra Nevada range, this nearly 1,700-foot tunnel was completed in 1867 by Chinese workers and the first train passed through it in 1868. The last train passed through in 1993 when the route was changed to a new location that looked nowhere near as cool as this. Today, you can hike through them and see petroglyphs, the historic 75-foot hand-built Chinese Wall, and lots and lots of graffiti.

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Daisy Barringer is a freelance writer in SF whose dream road trip destination is Bodie, California. Follow her on Instagram @daisysf to see if this is the year she finally makes it happen.