A ghost town in California is on sale - $1m is the price

For only $1 million, you could buy Cerro Gordo, a ghost town located in California’s Inyo Mountains.

It’s an abandoned 19th-century mining complex that comprises 300 acres of land, along with 22 old structures, including a chapel, a saloon and a hotel, all of them are empty, of course.

“Held by the same family for decades and only available for purchase now, the site has been extremely well protected from diggers, artifact looters and Mother Nature herself. Restoration has been undertaken on most of the buildings. and the rest are in a state of protected arrested decay. The site is historic as the first major mining camp south of the Sierra Nevada,” writes in the sale ad.

Cerro Gordo is located in Owens Valley and it was once known as the “silver thread” to Los Angeles.

The name of the city was given by the Mexicans who had been crawling the area searching for silver. In Spanish, “Cerro Gordo” means “Fat Hill”.

In 1868, Mortimer Belshaw, who was an important businessman of those times, decided to start a mining operation here and within one year, the city developed unimaginably, becoming the largest producer of silver and lead in California.

However, things started to fall apart during the 1880s, when the fall in silver value and a major fire hit the city. Cerro Gordo lacked manpower until 1905 when the Great Western Ore Purchasing and Reduction Company decided to buy the town. In 1920, there were only ten men working at the mines company and within the following years, the mines became defunct.

Nowadays, people can visit the ghost town in exchange for a $10 entry ticket. Worth mentioning is that these tours will continue until the town is sold.