ghost town

Noun

ghost town (plural ghost towns)

1. A town which has become deserted, usually due to failing economic activity, especially one that still has substantial visible remains.
   • Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Jueger, pioneers of Grays Harbor City, and sole inhabitants of the "ghost town".1916 April, W. L. Morris, “The Town that Died A-Bornin’: Grays Harbor City, a ‘Ghost Town’ in the Forest”, in Sunset: The Pacific Monthly, volume XXXVI, number 4, image caption, page 41, column 1
   • Crop failures in 1925 and 1926 ended the life of the trading center. The stores closed, and the merchants moved away. In one store the goods still rest on shelves, dust-covered reminders of a better day. The folks nearby now call it the Ghost Town.1938, E. M. Rowalt, “Cotton, Corn, Trees, and Grass”, in Soil Defense in the South (United States Department of Agriculture Farmers’ Bulletin; no. 1809), Washington, D.C.: United States Government...
2. (figuratively) Anything that has been deserted or abandoned, or has been empty all along.
   • It was the Friday evening before Christmas and ASU was a ghost town. Most everyone had left for the holiday several days earlier, including all of Professor Brinkerman's students.2014, D. C. Johnston, chapter 31, in Celtic Treasure: A Mick Scott Adventure, [s.n.]: Johnston Enterprises, →ISBN, page 195
   • At this hour, the canyoned street was a ghost town, and Billy easily spotted the late-model Nissan Pathfinder slowly approaching from three blocks south.2015, Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt, The Whites: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, page 332