154. Higdon Hotel, East Tennessee

Location: Reliance, Tennessee
Year: 1878
Cost: Undisclosed
This little Southern hotel was once a cute riverside resort. Now, it lay abandoned, waiting for guests to come back someday. The Higdon Hotel is located along the Hiwassee River in Reliance, Tennessee, and those who visit the Cherokee National Forest often stop to walk the grounds of this abandoned hotel.

Higdon Hotel, East Tennessee @gsousabarrera/Pinterest
The Higdon was originally built in 1878 as a residence, but it was sold to a wealthy family five years later. The Higdons turned it into a hotel, with its main clientele being railroad supervisors and bosses. When passenger trains stopped rolling through in the 1930s, the Higdon Hotel closed for business.

155. St. Athan Boys’ Village, Wales

Location: West Aberthaw, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales
Year: 1925
Cost: $800,000* (Proposed Sale Price)
Baron David Davies of Wales was a famous twentieth-century philanthropist, and one of his most well-known projects was the St. Athan Boys’ Village, a holiday retreat. Davies came up with the idea in the 1920s, as he wanted to offer the children of nearby coal miners a way to get away from the polluted, unhealthy air of the towns.

St. Athan Boys’ Village, Wales @illuminating_us/Instagram
So, he built the Village, which was close to the fresh air of the nearby beach. The retreat included dorms, a dining hall, a gym, workshops, a church, a swimming pool, and other recreational facilities. The Village later declined as coal mining in Wales’ Valleys fell to the wayside. The now-abandoned retreat went into administration in 1990, forcing its closure.

156. The Dotson School, Grainger County, Tennessee

Location: Grainger County, Tennessee
Year: 1905
Cost: $29,900* (Current Sale Price)
The Dotson School, built in the early 1900s, is located in Tennessee between Washburn and Thorn Hill. This institution is a bit of a mystery, as not many people know much about it, other than that it was a historical school, according to the government. Currently, this two-room schoolhouse, which sits on 1.5 acres of land, is up for sale for $29,900.

The Dotson School, Grainger County, Tennessee ©Kevin W. Jerrell/Flickr
In 2012, Tennessee preservationists from the East Tennessee Preservation Alliance listed the Dotson School as one of sixteen “endangered historic sites.” It is one of several in Grainger County, but it is up for sale, which means someone with $30K could easily swoop in and destroy it.

157. Gartloch Hospital, Glasgow, Scotland

Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Year: 1896
Cost: $43.24 million to build*
This imposing building was a former mental health facility. The Gartloch Hospital, located in Glasgow, Scotland, was founded in 1896. In addition to being a psychiatric ward, Gartloch was also a tuberculosis recovery center. Its bed capacity hit its peak of 830 patients in 1904. During World War II, Gartloch was converted into an emergency hospital for wounded Allied troops.

Gartloch Hospital, Glasgow, Scotland @campbell_montgomery/Instagram
The hospital went into a decline in the 1980s, and it officially closed in 1996, though it is still a governmentally-protected historical site. Additionally, Gartloch reportedly has its share of ghosts, including a poltergeist seen by psychiatric nurses working on the floor of the hospital, as well as former patients.

158. Kings Park Psychiatric Center, New York

Location: Kings Park, New York
Year: 1885
Cost: $2.5 million* (2003 Sale Price)
Locals called the Kings Park Psychiatric Center the “Psych Center,” and it was, for a time, a well-known institution in New York. It remained in operation for over a century, closing in the nineties when New York released its remaining patients (or, in some cases, transferred them to another facility).

Kings Park Psychiatric Center, New York ©Jill G/Shutterstock
When Kings Park was founded, it was revolutionary at a time when asylums were infamous for overcrowding and gross human rights abuses. Kings Park was a “farm colony,” which meant patients worked at growing food and feeding livestock, and the fresh air and manual labor was a surprisingly-effective form of therapy.

159. RAF Fearn, Dornoch Firth, Scotland

Location: Dornoch Firth, Scottish Highlands, Scotland
Year: 1941-1942
Cost: $92 per night to stay in the Tower*
The Fearn Airfield is one of Scotland’s long-forgotten airfields. Located near Tain in the Scottish Highlands, RAF Fearn was built in 1941. It didn’t officially open until 1942 when it was taken over by the British Royal Navy. The Navy had to update it, as it had a functional control tower, but that tower was not up to RN standards.

RAF Fearn, Dornoch Firth, Scotland @beesening/Instagram
The RAF tower wasn’t demolished, though it did get replaced. The airfield was intended for use as a torpedo training school, and many different units were formed there and sent off to fight in WWII. Today, most of the airfield still survives, though it is in a largely derelict state.

160. Casa Sirena Seaside Resort, Oxnard, California

Location: Oxnard, California
Year: 1972
Cost: Undisclosed
Located in Oxnard, California, the Casa Sirena Seaside Resort was once a very popular resort in the Channel Islands Harbor. It had 274 rooms, a spacious pool, and many other amenities. It was completed in 1972, and another ninety rooms were added four years later to accommodate Oxnard’s seasonal crowds.

Casa Sirena Seaside Resort, Oxnard, California @atlasobscura/Pinterest
The resort property was abandoned after remaining a popular tourist destination for forty years, and the majority of the resort was deemed non-operational in 2009. In 2006, the Hampton Inn did take over part of Casa Sirena, rebranding it, but, other than that, this once-popular vacation destination has remained in a degraded condition.

161. The Lost City Of Loyston, Tennessee

Location: Loyston, Tennessee
Year: 1894
Cost: $36 million* (Cost To Build Norris Lake)
The town of Loyston, Tennessee has a strange tale, from beginning to end. It was founded in 1894 and named after John Loy, a local businessman. It was a town until 1936 when it was intentionally flooded to create Norris Lake. The town’s residents were forced to relocate, and the flood destroyed schools, churches, mills, homes, and more.

The Lost City Of Loyston, Tennessee ©Tennessee Valley Authority/Wikimedia
Now, the Loyston Sea, as locals call it, hides the former town at its depths. The government helped the displaced former residents move, and they banded together to form New Loyston. Still, it’s strange to think an entire town could just be washed away and buried in an instant.

162. Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, Staffordshire, England

Location: Chell, Staffordshire, England
Year: 1750
Cost: $6,051* (1838 Valuation)
It’s hard to find the date that the Chatterley Whitfield Coal Mine was founded, though it was definitely in operation, on paper, in 1970. In 1838, an assessment valued this coal mine at an inflation-adjusted amount of over $6,000. Chatterley grew quickly, and it was the largest mine in North Staffordshire’s Coalfield for a time.

Chatterley Whitfield Colliery, Staffordshire, England @baz86316/Instagram
It was the first U.K. colliery to produce a million tons of saleable coal in just one year. The mine closed in the twentieth century, and Chatterley is now on the Heritage at Risk Register, a list compiled by Historic England, due to its disuse and poor condition. As of 2019, it was on the U.K. Victorian Society’s top ten “most endangered buildings” list.

163. The Glenwood Power Plant, Yonkers, New York

Location: Yonkers, Westchester County, New York
Year: 1900
Cost: $150 million* (Proposed Redevelopment Plan Cost)
Located in Yonkers, New York, the Glenwood Power Plant is a shuttered power station that has found new life as a film set, namely for zombie and post-apocalyptic projects. It’s understandable, considering how Glenwood looks like something out of a long-lost era.

The Glenwood Power Plant, Yonkers, New York ©Felix Lipov/Shutterstock
Reed & Stem designed Glenwood, and it came to life in 1900 when metropolitan New York’s railroads were electrified. In 1936, New York began to buy power, rather than produce it, so it sold Glenwood to Con Edison. Con Edison stopped using it in 1963, and this former power plant began its slow, decades-long decline after that.

164. Barnsdall-Rio Grande Gas Station, Goleta, California

Location: Goleta, California
Year: 1929
Cost: Undisclosed
The Barnsdall Rio-Grande Gas Station is a long-disused gas station that has largely been forgotten by everyone except locals in Goleta, California. The Barnsdall Rio-Grande Oil Company made a lot of money in the early 1900s, and the Gas Station was one of several buildings the company built to support its oil fields.

Barnsdall-Rio Grande Gas Station, Goleta, California @atlasobscura/Pinterest
The Station was located along the State Highway next to Barnsdall’s massive fields, and it was a showpiece for what the company could do. Barnsdall tapped a pricey, exclusive L.A. architectural firm to design the Station, and it opened for business in 1929. The forty-foot-high, Spanish-style building won several awards for its architecture. But, despite that beauty, the Station suffered quite a few setbacks, and it was closed for good in the fifties.

165. St. Peter’s Seminary, Cardross, Scotland

Location: Cardross, Argyll and Bute, Scotland
Year: 1961-1966
Cost: $792,000* (Proposed Maintenance Per Year Cost To Revive)
St. Peter’s Seminary, located in Cardross, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, is a former Roman Catholic institution that has been described by DOCOMOMO, an architectural conservation organization, as a “modern building” with “world significance.”  The Seminary began construction in 1961, and it was completed five years later in 1966.

St. Peter’s Seminary, Cardross, Scotland @thescottishconqueror/Instagram
Though beautiful, the Seminary was riddled with issues right from the start, including water entry, maintenance difficulties, and structural problems that the engineers and architects blamed one another for. Coupled with a decline in those entering priesthood, the Seminary closed for good in the eighties, just a few decades after its founding.

166. Town Of Tahawus, Adirondacks, New York

Location: Town of Newcomb, Essex County, New York
Year: 1826
Cost: $8.5 million* (2003 Land Sale Price)
Once a bustling village that was home to two separate mining operations, the town of Tahawus in the Adirondacks is now a ghost town. It was the site of major iron smelting and mining operations, though most of those buildings, save some blast furnaces, garages, and outbuildings, have been destroyed.

Town Of Tahawus, Adirondacks, New York ©Philip Mowbray/Shutterstock
Tawahus was abandoned twice, both times because the mine had issues with operation. The operations officially and permanently ceased in 1989, and now Tahawus is one of New York State’s most well-known ghost towns. Though the purchase price of the land reached $8.5 million in 2003, not much has been done with Tawahus today, and the remains of ten buildings remain on the former site.

167. Rockhaven Sanitorium, Glendale, California

Location: Crescenta Valley, Glendale, California
Year: 1923
Cost: $8.25 million* (2008 Sale Price)
In 1923, Agnes Richards, a psychiatric nurse, opened Rockhaven Sanitarium as an institution for women with mild nervous disorders, among other minor mental issues. It is one of few examples of a woman-owned private sanitarium in California, and it was one of the most well-known women-only facilities of its kind.

Rockhaven Sanitorium, Glendale, California @atlasobscura/Pinterest
Agnes Richards was a sanitorium nurse who saw the atrocious way that women were treated in state-run mental health facilities. She wanted to create a peaceful residential setting in which women could receive treatment for their disorders. Gladys Pearl Baker, Billie Burke, Peggy Fears, Josephine Dillon, and Marion Eleanor Statler Rose were some of Rockhaven’s most famous residents. The facility permanently closed in 2006, and it was sold to the city for $8.25 million in 2008.

168. Scotty’s Castle, Inyo, California

Location: Inyo, Death Valley, California
Year: 1922-1931
Cost: $26.58-$35.44 million to construct*
Walter Scott, a prospector, performer, and known con man built Scotty’s Castle for tens of millions of dollars (inflation-adjusted) in the early 1920s. The Castle, which was also known as Death Valley Ranch, took years to complete. Despite its name, Scott never owned Scotty’s Castle, and the Castle is more of a two-story villa.

Scotty’s Castle, Inyo, California @atlasobscura/Pinterest
The reason the property was so expensive was because Chicago millionaire Albert Johnson, Scott’s friend and funding partner, bought 1,500 acres of land to surround the ranch. Though Scott conned Johnson, the latter was fascinated with the former, and they struck up a strange friendship. Scotty’s Castle was a huge tourist attraction until 2015, when it was flooded and closed to the public.

169. Tennessee State Prison, Tennessee

Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Year: 1831
Cost: $17.934 million to construct*
This former correctional facility was built in the nineteenth century. Adjusting for inflation, the cost to build the Tennessee State Prison reached over $17 million, and the now-abandoned facility was riddled with issues from the start. It had two-hundred cells, and it was known for its strict conditions.

Tennessee State Prison, Tennessee @roadtrippers/Pinterest
The prisoners could not speak to one another, nor could they, without an emergency exception, receive communications from friends and relatives. For a long time, the State Prison housed men and women together. When the Union Army took it over in 1863, the military prison’s population tripled, and the prisoners’ conditions worsened. After years of overcrowding, forced labor, and inhumane conditions, Tennessee State Prison finally closed in 1992.