Ohio’s landscape hides more than forests, lakes, and farms. Tucked into its hills and valleys are the ghosts of once-thriving communities; places that rose on coal, steel, canals, or pottery, only to fall into ruin. But “ghost town” doesn’t mean just one thing.
In Ohio, these vanished places fall into three haunting categories:
- True Ruins – towns completely gone, where only tunnels, cemeteries, or ruins whisper of the past.
- Shrunken but Still Alive – communities clinging to life with just a handful of residents left.
- Still Populated but Derelict – towns and cities that technically live on, but are shells of their former selves.
Here are twenty towns that tell the story of these towns’ spectacular rise and decline, laid out in those three shades of disappearance.
Category One: True Ruins (Ghost Towns)
20. Ai (Fulton County)
How it became a rich, thriving town?Ai was barely a town at all — more a crossroads village in Fulton County. A few farmhouses and a post office clustered at the junction of wagon roads.
Why it went bustIt never grew beyond a handful of buildings. When better roads and rail bypassed the settlement, the tiny community simply dissolved.
Current status?Ai survives only as a curiosity: Ohio’s shortest-named town, now just a dot on old maps with no physical trace left.
19. Moonville (Vinton County)
How it became a rich, thriving town?Moonville grew around coal seams and the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad in the mid-1800s. Miners, rail workers, and their families carved out a tiny settlement in the woods…