Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten

Founded as a company mill town in 1884, Falk grew to 400 residents and thrived for 50 years. In 1937, due to the great depression, the mill had to shut the doors to its once thriving business. A dozen residents remained into the 1940s but by the 1950s, Falk became a ghost town. Bottle hunters sifting through the town's remains and people living in the abandoned buildings became a liability concern for the Sierra Pacific Lumber Co., which owned the town site. To resolve the problem, the company razed the buildings in 1979. Aside from the rose bushes and English Ivy, the town of Falk has literally disappeared, though many of the stories remain. Visit Falk and search for the faint trace of foundations and gardens. The tenacious redwood forest has reclaimed this area, which you can access via a hike through the woods. 

Tucked into the sunburned sagebrush of the high desert in Lassen County, California, is an area once known as Secret Valley. One of the few buildings from this abandoned town left standing is said to have been a brothel named Secret Manor. It catered to the men of the wild west who worked on the railroad, and the site is still rumored to be haunted by the spirits of ladies of ill-repute. Legend has it that Secret was a house of ill repute originally located near the railroad tracks that gave the rail workers of the late 1800s a place to fulfill their fantasies while they dreamt of finding gold in the hills or retiring rich with a beauty by their side. As the railroad declined with the advent of highways and the lumber trade, the house was relocated by buggy and coach to rest alongside the newer gravel highway, offering the same rest and respite to weary travelers and lonely locals alike for a few more years. Over time, the gravel road was rendered obsolete by the concrete highways of the new age and suddenly Secret found itself cut off and isolated - separated from the new thoroughfare by acres of grassland and marsh with no easy access to the manor or the women within it.