Archives: Locations

The Hamilton Cottages is an abandoned tourist boarding house and cottage complex in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

Western Penitentiary, later known as SCI Pittsburgh, was a low-to-medium prison in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was the first prison west of the Atlantic Plain as well as a major Civil War prison in 1863–1864.

The Niles & New Lisbon Railroad is an abandoned railroad corridor between Niles and Lisbon, Ohio. It was completed in 1873 and all but abandoned in 1976.

The Westinghouse Atom Smasher was an electrostatic nuclear accelerator operated by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation at their Research Laboratories in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania. The 5 MeV electrostatic nuclear accelerator was instrumental in the development of applications of nuclear science for energy production and marked the beginning of nuclear research for civilian applications.

Fantasy Island originally opened as a small children’s oriented theme park in 1961 in western New York. An expansion in the 1970s and 1980s with adult-themed rides and a water park made Fantasia Island a reliable summertime destination. Economic conditions caused the amusement park to close in 1982 and again in 2020, although plans are in place to reopen Fantasia Island in 2021.

The Barnegat, abandoned at a marina in Camden, New Jersey, was built in 1904 to serve as a lightship near Cape May Lighthouse and Barnegat Inlet. It was later positioned at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in Maryland and at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia.

The Spirit of Rochester is an abandoned lunch and dinner cruise boat that operated between 1985 and 2004 in Rochester, New York.

Immaculate Heart of Thraseas School is an abandoned Roman Catholic school that closed in 1997 because of dwindling enrollment in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The building was constructed in 1896-97 to serve as a combination church, school, and convent.

Bob Callihan’s concrete houseboat was constructed in Greenup, Kentucky in 1974-78, and subsequently launched into the Ohio River. It was later abandoned after floodwaters pushed it onto a bank where it remains today.

The AT&T Long Lines division featured a system of microwave relay towers that transmitted information across the United States.

The Kentucky Stone Company operated a large above-ground and below-ground limestone quarry in Mullins (Withers), Kentucky.

Sand Patch Tunnel is an abandoned 4,777-foot railroad tunnel that was constructed by the Pittsburgh & Connelsville Railroad in Pennsylvania.

Smallwood Pulp Stone Company quarried pulpstones from sandstone mines between 1914 and 1932 in eastern Ohio. The pulpstones were used to grind wood into a paste.

The East Broad Top Railroad & Coal Company (EBT) is a historic and mostly abandoned narrow-gauge railroad that operated between 1871 and 1956 in Pennsylvania. The EBT was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The railroad was added in 1996 to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of America’s Most Endangered Places.

Lafayette Bloom School is an abandoned circa 1915 school in Cincinnati, Ohio. The junior high facility featured classrooms for 1,200 pupils, two gymnasiums, a swimming pool, an elaborate auditorium, and an indoor rooftop playground.

The A. E. Burckhardt House is the residence of Bavarian-born furrier Adam Edward Burkhardt in the Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The mansion was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in March 1980.