Man visits forgotten American ghost town where 100 people lived before devastating decision forced them out
A YouTuber visited a town which has been left empty and deserted for over 60 years raising awareness of the sad reason residents felt 'staying no longer made sense'.
Located deep in the Yancey County region of the Pisgah National Forest in Appalachia, in the eastern United States, lies a ghost town named Lost Cove.
The town was first established around the time of the Civil War, built hidden within the forest across nearly four hundred acres of land.
And despite having no electricity or running water, located a whopping eight miles from places selling basic supplies, when Stephen Morgan Bailey and John D Tipton first settled their families there, it didn't take long to begin to thrive.
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More families came to live in the area, joining Bailey and Tipton. Houses were built, a church, and school.
Known for its logging and sawmills, the town survived by selling timber and was linked to the outside world via a railroad.
However, before 1960, the last of its residents left, leaving the town abandoned ever since - Lost Cove now only accessible via hiking miles through the forest.
And YouTuber Brent Underwood - who goes by Ghost Town Two - has shared his experience visiting the town, revealing why residents decided to leave 'not because they wanted to, but because staying no longer made sense'.
Why residents left Lost Cove
Brent details how Lost Cove 'reached its peak' in the 1900s, with 'close to 100 people' living there.
But when the Clinchfield line stopped running
Showing followers around the remnants of the town, including houses with their kitchens and stoves still intact Brent explained the town 'was a town until the 1950s'.
However, the town 'slowly dried up'.
Once the forests had been logged as much as possible, Local Cove's logging economy collapsed.
The railroad also stopped servicing the stops in the area leaving the town even more isolated than ever, taking away the ability to trade goods or make extra income when the town's logging industry broke down too.
Brent added: "They asked for a road into here, just a three mile road, and they couldn't get it."
The school closed in 1957, and families didn't know what else to do.
The YouTuber continued: "So, New Year's Day, 1958, the last family walked out of Lost Cove. And one of the last residents, Velmer Bailey, wrote on the church wall: 'School closed forever at Lost Cove. Very sad'. He later told a newspaper: 'We don't want to leave, but we have no choice.'"
And then in 2007, the town was pretty much destroyed completely when a fire struck. A few years ago, a hurricane swept through the town too.
But as Brent's video reveals, some structures, messages, - including the writing on the church wall - and the memories, remain.
Poppy Bilderbeck
