Города-призраки США

Ghost cities of the usa

Do you know the history of the USA?

• Who discovered America?
• Christopher Columbus did!
• When did he do that?
• In 1492
• When did the Europeans start to go to America by sea to find a better place to live?
• In the 17 th century
• What was the first ship’s name?
• It was Mayflower

People live in the cities and villages, but sometimes leave them. Why?

• Detroit opera

Some historical facts about the USA

At the beginning of the 17th century the first colonies appeared in America. Many of them were English colonies. But there were also Spanish and German colonies there.

The English King, who lived far away in England was the King of colonies too. The colonists in America didn't like that. They didn't want to depend on the English King or on England. The Americans began to fight for their independence and got it. George Washington became the first president of the United States.

In the 18th century some Americans went to the west to look for new lands and the story of «Wild West» began. In the 19th century people went west to look for gold. They built new settlements and new towns in these lands. Some people were lucky but some were not as they couldn't find any gold. Then they left the towns, so they became empty. Now these «ghost towns» are very popular with tourists.

Centralia

• This city appeared in the Pennsylvania state of the USA in 1841.

• The main industry here was the mining of anthracite. It’s a mineral, the best sort of coal that is used as a fuel.

• In 1960s the industry of anthracite mining got its peak. The city became rich and developed.

• But in May of 1962 the city administration asked the fire brigade to clean the garbage dump with the help of fire. The fire brigade burnt the dump and let it burn for some days.

• But the dump was situated in a big hole in the ground. After several days of burning, the fire somehow got into one of the anthracite mines. As anthracite is a fuel , the fire spread all over the mines and no one could stop it.

• This underground fire has been still burning since 1962 and will burn 250 years more until the anthracite will end.

• The citizen left Centralia because of the toxic smoke, that comes up through the holes in the ground.

Bodie, California

• In 1859 someone called W. S. Bodey found gold in this place. Two years later he built a factory for smelting gold. By 1880 in this small town there were already more than 10 000 people, who wanted to get gold.

• The city was criminal. People fought for gold and killed each other. There were 65 saloons, a casino was in every second house.

• At that time the city of Bodie was considered as the second capital of California. Bodie had around 2,000 buildings, a post office, a railway station, a church, a gas station, a hydroelectric plant.

• But by the beginning of the 20 century there was less and less gold. Gold-prospectors moved to other more profitable places. The newspaper and post office closed, the railways were demolished.

• The city became empty by 1942. Bodie is now an authentic Wild West ghost town. The town became Bodie State Historic Park in 1962 and receives about 200,000 visitors yearly.