Best Australian Ghost Stories by Graham Seal

Author:Graham Seal [Graham Seal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2025-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

In 1892, the Mount Kembla Colliery exploded while 261 men were in the mine. Some died instantly, some died slowly and a handful survived. The body of nineteen-year-old Michael Brennan was never found, but his spirit is said to remain in Mount Kembla.

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UNSETTLING PLACES

A Lively Ghost Town

No one knows how many ghost towns there are—or were—in Australia. An exact count is difficult to make because many abandoned settlements of the past have literally faded away, leaving little trace on the land or even in the records. Western Australia alone has well over 600 forsaken settlements, hamlets, villages and towns. In other states, the numbers are lower but, taken together, suggest at least 1000 abandoned places where people once lived and worked—for a while, at least.

Why did they leave? Usually because the industry or industries around which the towns were founded closed down. Many, if not most Australian ghost towns were once mining communities. When the commodity they drew from the earth was exhausted or became commercially unviable to mine, the residents packed up and left, often to another mining town eventually destined for the same fate. Agricultural settlements can decline for similar reasons. In some cases, roads and railways have been diverted, closed or simply never arrived, the lack of transport links sounding the town’s death knell. Whatever the reasons, the streets of empty shops and houses left behind are either deserted of people or populated by only a few, who struggle with a lack of facilities and services. These towns are ghosts of their former selves. Sometimes, they are even officially pronounced dead by government authorities, as was the New South Wales mining town of Silverton in 1907:

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