Travel

The Seneca Route

Just a Gold-Rush-Era Ghost Town for Sale

None 4 Photos Seneca, California
The great thing about the Internet: you can buy almost anything.

Private islands.

Picasso paintings.

A VHS copy of Maximum Overdrive.

Entire gold-rush-era ghost towns...

Hey, speaking of that last one: here’s a bona fide, middle-of-nowhere ghost town called Seneca, California, currently for sale to anyone looking for a late-19th-century fixer-upper homestead. (Oh, and yes, it’s on Craigslist. They keep all the good ghost towns on Craigslist.)

Observe the following numerical analysis...

Size of the town, in acres: 12
Difficulty of finding it on a map on a scale of 1 to 10: 9.2
Miles from the nearest paved road: 7
Miles to Reno: 128
Times you’ll say, “Hold down the fort, I’m headin’ to Reno”: at least 2
Cabins still standing on the premises: 3
Chinese-built gold mines with now-defunct opium dens: 1
Percent chance you’ll un-defunct said opium den: [REDACTED]
Gin mills still operating with liquor license: 1
Gold-rush-themed gin joints this town could use: 1
Total mines included with the property: 4
Largest gold nugget found around here, in ounces: 42
That nugget’s original value, in dollars: 28,000
Its value in 2013 dollars: 414,763.10
Ghost town water parks that amount of 2013 dollars could fund: depends on how many lazy rivers are involved

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