You Can Buy Your Very Own Ghost Town (Just in Time for Halloween)
The Emory Johnson Homestead is one of the abandoned houses in Johnsonville. (Photo: Rick Harris/Flickr)
Is Halloween your favorite holiday? Are you obsessed with all things spooky? Well, now you can buy your very own ghost town. On Oct. 28, just in time for All Hallow’s Eve, an abandoned village in Connecticut called Johnsonville goes up for auction.
The starting bid is a bit steep – $800,000 – and it could go for as much as $3 million. But it’s not a bad deal when you consider that it includes 62 acres of land with a small pond, a waterfall, a covered bridge, two creepy churches, a restaurant, and possibly the ghost of a former owner. (Plus, Billy Joel once shot a music video there, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. filmed a movie.)
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Is this where the ghost of Raymond Schmitt lives? (Photo: Eric Konon/Flickr)
The old covered bridge is included. (Photo: James Walsh/Flickr)
The Gilead Chapel was built in 1876 and moved to it’s current location from the town of Waterford, Connecticut in the 1960’s by Raymond Schmitt. (Photo: James Walsh/Flickr)
Johnsonville was founded in the early 19th century, and for a while it was a prosperous mill town, but that didn’t last. Enter an eccentric millionaire named Raymond Schmitt. In 1965, he bought the by-then nearly deserted property and hoped to turn it into a tourist attraction. He shipped in ominous looking antique Victorian buildings and even a steamboat. There were some visitors, but he never turned it into a real sight. His dream eventually died in the 1990s when he did. Or did it?
Like the lore of any good ghost town, some say Schmitt’s spirit still roams the property, “content to spend eternity in a place for which he had so much affection,” according to DamnedCT.com. “There’s an inherent creepiness to the place,” reports the site.
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Weathervane atop the old post office in Johnsonville. (Photo: Rick Harris/Flickr)
Johnsonville will be listed for sale at Auction.com on Oct. 28 through Oct. 30.
Related: Abandoned Ghost Town Found Right in the Middle of a National Park
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