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4,000 People Vanished from This Ghost Town... And Someone Just Bought It

Johnny Roads

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In 1948, Henry J. Kaiser built an entire town in the California desert — four thousand people, a shopping center, a bowling alley, eight churches — to feed iron ore to his steel mill in Fontana. Eagle Mountain was one of the largest company towns in the American West and home to the largest iron mine west of the Mississippi. It was also, quietly, the birthplace of Kaiser Permanente: the prepaid health plan that started with desert construction workers paying a nickel a day for medical care. When the mine closed in 1983, the town emptied almost overnight. What followed is one of the strangest second lives of any ghost town in the country — a privately run prison that ended in a deadly riot during the 2003 World Series, a twenty-five-year fight over turning the mine into the nation's largest landfill next to Joshua Tree National Park, a Christopher Nolan film shoot, a failed hydroelectric proposal, and a $22.5 million sale in 2023 to a mystery buyer no one can identify. The abandoned Eagle Mountain Railroad still crosses the desert floor. The road in is barely a road at all. And somewhere in all of it is a story about what lasts and what doesn't — about an idea that outlived the iron, the town, and the man who built it.

Sources

"Eagle Mountain, California." Wikipedia. Accessed June 2026.
"Eagle Mountain Railroad." Wikipedia / Locomotive Wiki (Fandom). Accessed June 2026.
"Sidney R. Garfield, MD: Pioneer in Modern American Health Care." Kaiser Permanente, about.kaiserpermanente.org. Accessed June 2026.
"California Private Prison Uprisings Kill 2, Injure 66." Prison Legal News, September 15, 2004.
"Mystery buyer purchases California ghost town for $22.5 million." Elizabeth Napolitano, CBS News, May 22, 2023.
"Proposed Trash Dump Next to Joshua Tree National Park Canceled." Chris Clarke, KCET / PBS SoCal, May 24, 2013.

20 Comments

@covercalls88 2 months ago

In 1963 I visited the Kaiser steel plant in Fontana, I was 10 years old. Very impressive to see them pour the melted steel. Talk about fireworks.

@doskraut 3 months ago

And look at it today, a hazardous waste site .

@jeffstorm 2 months ago

My uncle worked there and retired in 1979. He was one of the first heavy equipment operators. That's when he moved back to Missouri to a farm that he had bought several years earlier that his son and his family operated. He still had the Henry J that he drove around Desert Center. Yes, Kaiser had his own car manufacturing operation and built called the Henry J. First as Kaiser-Frazer and later Kaiser-Overland which included the Jeep.

@Ron-p9d5m 2 months ago

Ecology mountain is a name meant to sound harmless, that's how you can tell it's likely anything but.

@bubbabubba2013 2 months ago

I'd bet that trucking company is dumping industrial waste and toxic materials.

@bigbrother9531 2 months ago

Time line seems screwed. Built Liberty ships, then the steel mill after WW2. Then has medical coverage for the workers after the fact. Confused.

@shannonfontan6594 1 month ago

Forgot to thank you for your research on this excellent video you produced. Was a joy to watch, and brought back a lot of memories for this 79 year old from the San Leandro/Oakland area.
Best regards,

@danor6812 3 months ago

Why did a company that hauls hazardous waste pay 22.5 million for the land and mine? Gosh, I have no clue.

@charlieboy501 2 months ago

I drive trucks all threw there this is a good history lesson

@garyhaber333 2 months ago

Toxic and nuclear waste dump now....

@knotbumper 2 months ago

The health care plan was preceded by the Sister of Providence in Olympia in 1908. The sisters got a nickel a paycheck from the loggers and millworkers and they would care for you. Not just industrial injuries but general sickness also.

@StaxTurner_123 3 months ago

I wonder who was the last to leave 😂😂😂

@terryallen6005 2 months ago

I would be surprised if the Chinese bought it

@humpworm 3 months ago

The unknown buyer is going to build a new Buc ee's 😉

@RobertMangeni-m9b 3 months ago

The ghost town is now owned by a ghost. 😊

@theoldman8877 2 months ago

The problem with HMO is they have evolved, now they avoid testing when conditions mite suggests cancer. Results less money spent on treating cancer. This is the approach that killed my mother and father.

@AlvinSeville1 2 months ago

They didn't vanish, they left.

@lvyumn 2 months ago

Toward the end, someone from El Cerrito, Ca. purchase the Eagle Mountain property for 22.5 million, no one knows why. I have a nickle to bet, Eagle Mountain will become an Artificial Intelligence Data Center.
Makes sense, data centers need lots of water for cooling, theres a Colorado River pumping station near by. Pump water through the cooling stations, and back into the water lines going to L.A. Makes sense.

@Mike-l2h1s 1 month ago

Nobody is accountable to this region and corruption is all that's making it happen. Everyone can point out what's taking place but nobody really knows what's going on . If you're thinking who's getting financially wealthy maybe you'll address whom is responsible. Underneath the desert floor there's a salt layer which is over 100 ft thick that's where metal crystals form up. Wonder how folks can keep this information from getting out.