10 Kentucky Coal Towns With Houses Cheaper Than a Used Car

In the mountains of eastern Kentucky sit towns that were built by coal companies, grew to thousands of residents, and then emptied out. Today you can buy a house in some of them for less than the price of a used car. These places weren't abandoned. They were left behind. In this video we visit ten forgotten Kentucky towns: what each one was at its peak, what the houses cost now, and why so few people are buying. One of them was once the largest coal company town in the world, with ten thousand residents, a hospital, a cinema and people of thirty-eight different nationalities. Today fewer than seven hundred live there. What emptied these mountains wasn't a strike or a disaster. It was machinery. Mining shifted to methods that needed a fraction of the workers, and unlike other parts of Kentucky there was no second industry to fall back on. When the jobs went, the schools consolidated, the shops closed, and the young people left. What remains is some of the most beautiful country in America, with housing prices that look like a misprint — and a very real reason behind every one of them. Everything here is based on published census figures, county records and reporting. Real numbers, real history, no hype. If you enjoy these stories about the towns America forgot, subscribe — new episodes every Wednesday and Saturday. ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ WHAT WE COVER Kentucky coal towns with homes under $40,000 The town that was once the largest of its kind in the world How mechanisation emptied the mountains Why the population is still falling What life is like for the families who stayed ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ MORE FROM BACKROAD GHOSTS ▸ You Can Actually Buy This —    • You Can Actually Buy This   ▸ Where Almost Nobody Lives —    • Where Almost Nobody Lives   ▸ Every Episode —    • The Towns America Forgot — Every Episode   #kentucky #CoalTowns #cheaphouses #appalachia #abandonedamerica