From the dusty towns of the old west, to the empty mills of the east, there’s just something about abandoned places and the stories they leave behind. Today’s Word of Mouth is all about ghost towns, from neglected Olympic villages to forgotten websites.
We’ll also hear the story of a small town in northern Maine where the ghost of a sea captain is said to roam.
And we’ll visit a ghost town in North Carolina that hit the jackpot when it was transformed into District 12 from Suzanne Collins dystopian novel, The Hunger Games.
Listen to the full show and click Read more for individual segments.
Abandoned Olympic Parks
- Photographer Jon Pack and filmmaker Gary Hustwit have been documenting what happens after the Olympic hullabaloo is over in places like Sochi, Russia, which is now a fifty-one billion dollar ghost town. Their photobook and ongoing project is called The Olympic City.
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Abandoned Olympic Parks
The Sea Captain's Ghost
- In the small village of Stratton, Maine, a woman believes she's not the master of her own destiny - the spirit of a sea captain is preventing her from leaving. Producer Sofia Saldanha brings us the story.
- You can listen to this story again at prx.org.
Digital Ghost Towns
- David Ewalt is a contributing editor at Forbes, and he spoke with us about “digital ghost-towns”…the internet’s abandoned websites and social networks.
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Digital Ghost Towns
The Real District 12
- Leigh Trapp tells us the story behind the real District 12, a North Carolina ghost town ushered into Hollywood fame by the Hunger Games franchise.
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The Real District 12
Invasion Of The Tumbleweeds
- George Johnson is a writer based in Santa Fe, and a regular contributor to National Geographic, where he wrote about fighting the tumbleweed menace in his own backyard.
- We've got a slideshow of some of the massive tumbleweeds and the full audio at this link.
A Road To Nowhere
- It wasn’t one of New Hampshire’s handful of ghost-towns that drew the attention of Sean Hurley, but the remnants of an old street in Keene, a street that goes nowhere and sees no traffic – a ghost-road, if you will.
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A Road to Nowhere
