19 American Towns Purchased by a Single Owner

The reason was almost disappointingly practical: James Johnson wanted somewhere to keep his cars and toys. Cabin Creek, a deserted roadside stop east of Denver, happened to come with considerably more than a garage. When he bought the property around 2000, the roughly five-acre ghost town also included a former gas station, an eight-room motel, a cafe, houses, and remnants of the days when U.S. 36 traffic kept the place alive. Johnson repaired enough of it to live there, sold it for a period, then regained the property years later after the next owner neglected it. By 2016, he was ready for retirement and advertised the entire ghost town on Craigslist for $350,000.