Science
Man Spends Life Savings On Abandoned Ghost Town Once Worth $500 Million
For some people, moving up the real estate ladder is a significant aspect of growing up, but don’t buy a fixer-upper at a discount. How about investing your hard-earned money in a real ghost town and attempting to improve its situation?
Jon Bier and Brent Underwood came up with this idea when they banded together to purchase Cerro Gordo in California. Cerro Gordo, which translates as “Fat Hill” in Spanish, was established when silver ore was found there in 1865.
With 4,700 residents at its height, Cerro Gordo was the greatest producer of zinc carbonates in the United States in 1912 as a result of expanding mining operations. By 2019, there was only one miner left, a 70-year-old who had been selling visitors tiny bits of silver he could discover since 1997.
Underwood has shared his narrative and the reason he would purchase a ghost town on his YouTube channel.
Underwood claims that although he was adamantly opposed to ghosts, a few unsettling experiences in the area have now caused him to reconsider. According to the LA Times, Underwood and Bier paid $1.4 million acquired Cerro Gordo in 2018 with the intention of converting it into a tourist destination.
People made a fortune from the riches hidden beneath Cerro Gordo, which yielded minerals valued at over $17,000,000, or $500 million in today’s currency. Regretfully, it doesn’t appear feasible that Underwood will suddenly discover a new passion and get lucky in his abandoned town. In 2020, a fire destroyed the famous American Hotel, an icehouse, and a cabin, but Underwood is determined to restore Cerro Gordo to some of its former splendour.
The bio on Underwood’s channel reads: “My hope is to breathe life back into this town. My goal one day is to allow more people to come and stay overnight.”
Others made offers for the site, including a theme park and a care facility, but Underwood and Bier turned down perhaps a dozen of them. Because Underwood and Bier’s promised to attract tourists back to Cerro Gordo, the owners reportedly rejected a $2 million offer in favour of theirs.
Underwood has described what it’s like to have lived in the town for almost five years in one of his more recent films. He has talked about some of the unique artefacts he has discovered in addition to his efforts to reconstruct the American Hotel.
Although there is obviously still more work to be done, Cerro Gordo is once again thriving after its mines were shut down in 1957. In addition to consistently producing footage on his YouTube channel, Underwood has documented the challenges of residing in such a remote location in his 2024 book Ghost Town Living. Underwood appears committed to driving the spirits out of this abandoned town, despite the possibility that Cerro Gordo may never be a thriving centre where almost 5,000 people live.
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