I bought California ghost town for $1.4M

Polly Thompson (pthomspon@insider.com), Business Insider via MSN.com, Feb. 25, 2024; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Earth’s great balancing act: Nature is adapting to human influence (Earth/MSN)

• When he was 30, American Brent Underwood left Austin, Texas, and moved to an abandoned mining town.
• While restoring the ghost town he has realized that people approach finding a purpose in life the wrong way.
• Underwood spoke to Business Insider from 900 feet beneath ground level, while sheltering from a snowstorm.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brent Underwood about his experience moving to a Californian ghost town. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Visit at night when they're active

In 2018, my friend sent me a listing for Cerro Gordo, an abandoned mining town in California. "This might be your next project," he joked.

The idea of a remote town in the American West was very alluring to me. It reminded me of the old TV westerns my grandfather watched every day [Gunsmoke, Kung Fu, High Noon].

I was running a pretty popular bed and breakfast in Austin, but it felt like I was just searching for something to shake me up from the routine monotony of American life.

Buying this ghost town has done that. It cost $1.4 million — more than half was a loan from a hard money lender. More: I bought a California ghost town for $1.4 million. Living here gets lonely — but I've found my purpose

• Tormented ghost scientist seeks town to haunt, preferably in Japan: Paul Tibbets dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and was given no funeral or gravestone. Thanks, US military
• Life beyond Earth proven to be common in new study • Earth.com