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It seems that every ghost town that we visit has residents and "no trespassing" signs everywhere, or they are on National Forest land where there is no MD allowed. Yesterday we went to one in Oregon called Westfall. There was one building that was lived in with the "no trespassing" signs and another building that looked too run down for occupancy but was being lived in and two old shacks that were falling down. Very disappointing trip. Silver City Idaho has nearly every residence occupied and the people are very unfriendly. How are these people taking possession of these old homes? Are they squatters? Are there any websites that are informative enough so that you can plan an enjoyable trip and not visit a "ghost town" that really isn't?
Thanks for any and all help.
Jeanne, you're going to see very few "spaghetti western" style "ghost towns" for viewing. Most of them are either utterly nothing left (except a few foundations in the middle of nowhere), or are totally gussied up for the tourists (leaving very little to see in the way of what we think of as "ghost towns" in the true sense). Thus very few of the board-&-batton abandoned buildings-type-thing that you can just browse through to see. An exception would be Bodie. And there's a few other spots in the USA like that. But few and far between, since most burned to the ground, or are now gussied up with modern botiques, blah blah.
And as for metal detecting: Go figure that if there ARE examples that tourists can just walk through, take pix, visit, etc... (like bodie), then go figure: those type places would, by mere definition, be sensitive historical monuments. In those cases, it therefore wouldn't matter WHO'S property its on (state, city, county, or fed), because .... you can just pretty much already assume that sensitive historical monuments aren't going to want people waltzing around with detectors, bottle digging "taking things" etc... (lest within 5 short years, the visitors would literally walk off with everything, and then there's nothing left for others to see
)
So if you want to detect in "ghost-town-like-conditions", don't be fooled into looking and visiting at the obvious colorful ones (that can be found in RV guides, Sunset home and garden coffee table books, etc...). Instead, you want to find the one-horse towns that are long gone, with nothing to mark their site. You know, like where a stage stop once stood, but is now nothing but a cross-roads in the middle of nowhere, or a cow pasture, or an orchard, etc... Sure, maybe such a "cross-roads" (with nothing but a saloon, stage stop, and blacksmith) weren't a "city" in the modern sense of the word (like bodie or whatever), but you will find coins and relics at such places. And since there's nothing left there to mark the site, you're not going to find the level of scrutiny and preservation. I mean, quite literally, no one's there to care. Especially if you're talking about having researched in obsure sources for these short-lived little commercial ventures, or short-lived miner tent city spots, etc.... I've researched and hit these immigrant and stage route type over-nighter spots, and done quite well. Seateds, reales, a few gold coins, etc....
But you have to hit the very obscure hard to find historical sources. If the spot is colorful, and with plaques and such marking the site, then go figure someone else has tried it (or you're going to feel ... uh ... odd ... hunting right next to a plaque, etc...)
