The Ghost Town of Gray's Harbor City
An abandoned boom-town remains standing in silence, a monument to the reckless real estate speculation of the era.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A traveler recently returned from the Gray's Harbor country describes the 'ghost' town of Gray's Harbor City. Despite having upwards of 60 buildings—including a business block that cost $20,000—the town is entirely deserted, save for a few fishermen in shanties. The interior of the main business block, once home to the Gray's Harbor Times, remains exactly as it was when the tenants left over a year ago: steam presses, type cases, and pens still sitting on the desks. The town was a project of St. Paul capitalists who cleared 2,100 acres and built a 3,000-foot wharf to reach deep water, yet the commerce never materialized. Today, the only occupants are hoot owls and bats.
“The halls and rooms of this block have the appearance of being left while the occupants had just gone out to lunch, while as a matter of fact the place has been abandoned for upwards of a year.”
This account captures the extreme 'boom and bust' cycles that defined early Washington state development. Many towns were plotted and built with feverish intensity during the late 19th century, only to vanish when the bubble burst, mirroring the fragility of speculative urban planning that persists today.
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