20 Missouri Ghost Towns Lost to Time and History

Missouri is a state with a rich history, but not all of that history is still active among us. There are numerous locations that used to be thriving communities that have become ghost towns with hardly a hint of how vital they used to be.

My grandmother had a farm in a Missouri community that was so small it didn't have an official population and the post office there hasn't been active for nearly 120 years. My cousins and I spent many a Sunday afternoon adventuring around that farm and those remain some of the happiest memories in my life. I bring this up because her farm and the community around it is similar to many off-the-beaten path locations in Missouri that eventually became ghost towns and started to disappear. Here are 20 that come to mind.

Times Beach - St. Louis County Evacuated in 1983 after severe dioxin contamination; now part of Route 66 State Park.
Arlington - Phelps County Historic railroad/lumber community that declined after transportation routes changed.
Bloodland - Pulaski County Displaced when the federal government established Fort Leonard Wood during WWII.
Cookville - Pulaski County Former community absorbed into the Fort Leonard Wood area.
Hamburg - St. Charles County Abandoned in 1941 when the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works was established.
Howell - St. Charles County Lost when residents were displaced for the WWII-era ordnance works.
Toonerville - St. Charles County Another community eliminated by the Weldon Spring military project.
Ark - Dent County Former lumber shipping community; its post office operated from 1901–1915.
Melva - Taney County Former Ozarks settlement now considered an extinct community.
Monark Springs - Newton County Former resort community whose population and commercial activity disappeared.
Phenix - Greene County Former community in southwest Missouri that eventually disappeared.
Plew - Lawrence County Historic rural community that has become an extinct settlement.
Possum Trot - Stone County Small Ozarks community that disappeared as the local population declined.
Rueter - Taney County Former Taney County community; its post office opened in 1906.
Saint Annie - Laclede County Former Laclede County settlement now classified as a ghost town.
Spencer - Lawrence County Former community along historic transportation routes in southwest Missouri.
Wakenda - Carroll County Former community that eventually disappeared as local settlement patterns changed.
Wila - New Madrid County Former southeastern Missouri community; its post office operated from 1894–1898.
Holman - Webster County Former community northeast of Springfield; its post office operated from 1903–1911.
Old Greenville - Wayne County Historic community abandoned when the original townsite was inundated by Clearwater Lake.

Times Beach, Missouri is one of the most notorious as the town had to be abandoned due to toxic waste. The state of Missouri did an amazing job masking the terrible history there with what is now a Route 66 roadside park that looks like this.

It's sad that these Missouri towns have now become just a memory in the past. Progress happens, things change and time moves forward. There's a part of me that feels like a part of us goes away, too, as these forgotten Missouri places disappear.