Factors leading to abandonment of towns include depleted natural resources or natural resources such as water no longer being available; railways and motorways bypassing or no longer accessing the town or economic activity shifting elsewhere; human intervention such as highway re-routing (as was the case with many towns located along U.S. Route 66, after motorists bypassed the towns on the faster moving I-44 and I-40); river re-routing (the Aral Sea being one example of this), and nuclear disasters such as Three Mile Island. Significant fatality rates from epidemics have also produced ghost towns; for example, some places in eastern Arkansas were abandoned after near-total mortality (over 7,000 Arkansans died during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919).
Natural disasters can also create ghost towns. After being flooded more than 30 times since their town was founded in 1845, residents of Pattonsburg, Missouri had enough after two floods in 1993. With government help, the whole town was rebuilt three miles (5 km) away. Residents moved to New Pattonsburg, leaving the old Pattonsburg behind as a ghost town. A more recent ghost town is Centralia, Pennsylvania, which at its peak had over 2,600 residents in either the borough itself or in immediately adjacent areas and was over 1,000 as recent as 1981 but as of 2007 was down to nine residents and finally zero residents in 2012 as a result of a underground mine fire that started in the 1960s when a landfill created from an abandoned strip mine was set on fire. (At the time, it was legal to create a landfill from an abandoned strip mine as long as it was sealed off from any possible coal seams that could catch fire; this loophole has since been closed because of Centralia.) Pennsylvania later acquired the borough through eminent domain so it could get the residents safely moved to other areas, though a small handful remain unti last year.
Due to improvements in scientific testing and warning procedures, ghost towns may also occasionally come into being due to an anticipated natural disaster
Natural disasters can also create ghost towns. After being flooded more than 30 times since their town was founded in 1845, residents of Pattonsburg, Missouri had enough after two floods in 1993. With government help, the whole town was rebuilt three miles (5 km) away. Residents moved to New Pattonsburg, leaving the old Pattonsburg behind as a ghost town. A more recent ghost town is Centralia, Pennsylvania, which at its peak had over 2,600 residents in either the borough itself or in immediately adjacent areas and was over 1,000 as recent as 1981 but as of 2007 was down to nine residents and finally zero residents in 2012 as a result of a underground mine fire that started in the 1960s when a landfill created from an abandoned strip mine was set on fire. (At the time, it was legal to create a landfill from an abandoned strip mine as long as it was sealed off from any possible coal seams that could catch fire; this loophole has since been closed because of Centralia.) Pennsylvania later acquired the borough through eminent domain so it could get the residents safely moved to other areas, though a small handful remain unti last year.
Due to improvements in scientific testing and warning procedures, ghost towns may also occasionally come into being due to an anticipated natural disaster