Melmont
Melmont is a ghost town in Melmont, Washington. Historic settlement and ghost-town heritage. It sits in the archive under ghost towns. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. Access details are unverified — research before visiting. The dossier keeps the place and the story in the same record — which is what the archive is for.
Tourism page reports Fairfax Bridge closure; verify current trail access. Buildings are not authorized for entry.
· in your passport — stamped · open it
Is Melmont haunted?
No claims are filed here — the record keeps this place for its documented history, not for a haunting on file.
The record — long form
Melmont was built in 1900 for a single customer. The Northwest Improvement Company — Northern Pacific's coal subsidiary — opened the Melmont mine on the Carbon River between Carbonado and Fairfax, and the town that followed existed to feed the railroad. Its coal, a high-grade blacksmith's coal, went exclusively to Northern Pacific locomotives; over sixteen working years the mine shipped roughly 900,000 tons, about four percent of Pierce County's total output.
The company town was complete and stratified: a depot, schoolhouse, saloon, and a hotel that held the post office, butcher, and store, with rows of miners' cottages sorted — by the surviving account — along nationality lines, miners self-segregated by origin. The men eventually organized as United Mine Workers local 2963. Coal went three miles up the canyon to Carbonado for processing.
Taken apart twice
The end came in layers. The post office closed in 1915, mail rerouting through Fairfax; the Northwest Improvement Company left in 1918; Carbon Hill Coal worked briefly to 1919; and a forest fire in the early 1920s destroyed most of what the closure had left. The last resident, Andrew Montleon, lived in the basement of the second schoolhouse; the school's lumber was recycled into the Carbon River Ranch building down the line.
Today the townsite is a hike, not an address — the old rail grade carries the Melmont trail under the high Fairfax bridge, past the school foundation, a dynamite shed, and a wagon-bridge abutment. The file keeps it as mining heritage on a managed corridor; no haunting claim is implied.
Documented history
Coal town founded in 1900. Melmont's history is documented — boom, bust, and desertion all on record, the lore layered on top. Media accounts document it — reported history rather than legend. The record appears in 'Discover Washington Ghost Towns'. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.
Media reportedState of Washington Tourism
Sources on file
- 01Discover Washington Ghost TownsState of Washington Tourism · tourism · A3
Field notes & open questions
Pass 1 discovery. Inclusion is for ghost-town heritage; no haunting claim is implied. Parcel access and coordinates remain unverified.