{"id":1735,"slug":"old-molson-old-molson-washington","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Old Molson had a brewery fortune behind it and a two-year boom. In 1900, promoter George B. Meacham founded the townsite in Okanogan County, 1.7 miles south of the Canadian border, on money from John W. Molson — of the Canadian Molson banking and brewing family — who put in a reported $170,000. The post office opened that July; by year's end some three hundred people supported three general stores, a drugstore, three saloons, a dance hall, livery, blacksmith, assay office, hotel, newspaper, attorney, and doctor.","Then the money left. The Molson company withdrew its backing, and by June 1901 — a year after founding — twelve residents remained. The grand Hotel Tonasket, three stories and thirty-four rooms named for the Okanogan chief, stood until it burned in 1924. Mining flickered intermittently around the district until 1938, while the newer Molson townsite nearby carried on with a real school."]},{"heading":"The town as exhibit","paragraphs":["In 1960 Harry Sherling established the Old Ghost Town Museum at the original townsite — an open-air assemblage of pioneer buildings, farm machinery, and mining equipment — and the surviving Central Molson schoolhouse became a second museum holding the school's library and household artifacts. Both run seasonal hours by donation.","The file keeps the site as heritage rather than haunting: Old Molson is a deliberately curated ghost town, which makes it an unusual archive object — a boom that failed in twelve months, preserved sixty years later by a man who decided the ruins were the point."]}],"name":"Old Molson","aliases":[],"type":"GHOST_TOWN","type_label":"Ghost Town","cats":["GHOST_TOWN"],"groups":["ghost-towns"],"desc":"Historic settlement and ghost-town heritage.","full_desc":"A ghost town in Old Molson, Washington, Old Molson is filed here for what the record attaches to it. Historic settlement and ghost-town heritage. It sits in the archive under ghost towns. The dossier holds 1 documented fact — a documented spine with no haunting reports attached. Visitor status is unverified; confirm before making the trip.","address":null,"city":"Old Molson","county":"Okanogan","state":"Washington","postal":null,"region":"West","lat":48.58145,"lon":-119.70323,"coord_kind":"COUNTY","status":"UNKNOWN","access":"UNKNOWN","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Pass 1 discovery. Inclusion is for ghost-town heritage; no haunting claim is implied. Parcel access and coordinates remain unverified.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"LOW","score":49.3,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.6,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"Former mining settlement with preserved pioneer artifacts. The town's documented rise and abandonment is the record the rest of the file stands on. The press recorded it; the detail stands as reported history. The record appears in 'Discover Washington Ghost Towns'. It is the kind of fact the rest of the dossier leans on.","evidence":"MEDIA_REPORTED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Discover Washington Ghost Towns","url":"https://stateofwatourism.com/ghost-towns-of-washington-state/","publisher":"State of Washington Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Access details are unverified; research before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Discover Washington Ghost Towns","url":"https://stateofwatourism.com/ghost-towns-of-washington-state/","publisher":"State of Washington Tourism","type":"TOURISM","authority":3}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":0,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}