The record of what isn't there
122 dossiers describe places the ground no longer holds — razed, deserted or drowned. The files keep their claims, their sources and their stories; what they lost is the destination.
Where the gone files concentrate
dossiers marked gone, per jurisdiction · top 12 of 44
Abandoned — 84 files
The largest of the gone classes — left standing, left unlocked or left fenced, but left. A filing about desertion, not an invitation: most of these doors are not open to you. The full abandoned shelf lives under status.
Demolished — 37 files
The building is rubble or a parking lot. Nothing left to visit — the file is all that stands. The full demolished shelf lives under status.
Submerged — 1 file
Under water on purpose or by flood. A single file carries this status — too few for its own shelf, so it stays here.
- Thunder Mountain / RooseveltYellow Pine · Idaho · Ghost Town
The file outlives the building
A gone dossier reads exactly like a standing one — same claims, same sources, same story — because the record was never really about the structure. It was about what sources said happened there. Demolition ends the visit, not the filing: 62 of the 122 still carry claims on record, reported at the time and unretractable now, the site notwithstanding.
The statuses mean different absences. Abandoned is a door nobody opens; demolished is no door at all; submerged is the dossier floated off its foundation entirely — the archive's single submerged file is a town under a reservoir's reach. In every case the pin on the map marks where something was, and the status field is the archive's note to itself that "was" is the operative tense.
Worth the usual caution: status is a filing, not a field report. A dossier marked abandoned reflects what its sources said when filed — buildings get demolished, restored and reopened while the paperwork catches up. The gone file records that the record believes the place is gone; it does not promise the bulldozer got the date right.
Record last amended October 2, 2026 · gone files recounted with the archive