Ghost town revealed as Lake Mead's water level drops

Pieces of an old building in St. Thomas, Nevada.

(Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

By Catherine Garcia, The Week US

published 7 August 2015

A Nevada ghost town that was submerged underwater in the 1930s is now visible again, due to drought conditions.

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In 1938, the recently finished Hoover Dam backed up the waters of the Colorado River, and residents were forced to leave. Historian Aaron McArthur told News 3 that one man, Hugh Lord, waited until the last minute to evacuate. "The day that he left, he woke up with water swirling around his bed," he said. "And he put his last possessions into a rowboat and rowed away from his house, and as he was leaving, he lit his house on fire." For years after, the ghost town was under at least 60 feet of water, and would reappear at times during droughts. Now that the National Park Service has cleared a path from a parking area to the site, St. Thomas is once again a tourist attraction.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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