- The first thing John Voight (not the actor) wanted me to know about his home of Sunrise, Wyoming was that it is “not your regular ghost town.” Though Voight lives alone with his dog and two cats on the 225 acres of Sunrise, he doesn’t let his town languish the way, apparently, regular ghost-town owners do.
When we spoke in June, Voight was preparing for a tour of the town’s iron mines organized by a local historical society. “It’s a little crowded up here right now with 25 or 30 people,” Voight told The Outline by phone. “I’m not used to it. I'm used to being by myself.”
(raises hand) "uhm, excuse me..." I spent too much time in Jerome, Arizona. There are ghosts. You see them everywhere you look. I slept about a hundred yards from a bombed-out 3-story high school that hadn't graduated a class since the '50s. Everywhere you look? You see things that people didn't want to leave. Ghost towns are places where dreams died. Maybe it's easier if you don't pay attention. I dunno. But I've driven through Arizona too many times and every time I take the back roads, I see more ghost towns that were small towns the last time. I guess if you can wash it away with a hundred years of history it's a little less poignant but I mean... once you've seen a house that nobody is ever going to take the LED icicle lights off of you lose your taste for it. Or at least, I would have if I ever had any.Jake Rasmuson, the real-estate agent, told The Outline that “there is not a demographic out there that does not want to buy a ghost town.”
You're not wrong. Just keep in mind that vocabulary gets pretty loosey-goosey when dealing with real estate agents. Having grown up in New Mexico, Tucumcari was big enough that it got listed in the weather reports. If I recall correctly it had car dealerships. But then, it was 40% bigger back then.