As Darlene mentioned, this off-the-beaten-path excursion was our favorite of the trip.

We heard there was a ghost town outside of Wells, Nevada but we didn’t know much more than that. We also knew that this was an unique ghost town because it was not your average old timey cowboy ghost town, Metropolis was founded in 1910 and didn’t make it much past the 1930s so the remaining buildings are more recognizable as “modern” buildings.

Our only hope was to find a Wells local who could point us in the right direction. There weren’t too many locals to be found, Wells is practically a ghost town itself. We found a friendly welder who had been to Metropolis many years ago and did his best to describe the route to the town that has been almost entirely swallowed by the desert.

We got lost almost immediately, at least we thought we were lost because the roads are barely roads and street signs have never existed. We drove deeper and deeper into the void and wondered if we would ever be able to find this needle in the 100 mile haystack. Using the limited information Google maps would provide on our cell phones we found a road we believed to be “Lower Metropolis Rd.” This was a good sign!

We drove and drove and drove for about 45 minutes into the never-changing scenery and were about to give up when we spotted something in the distance that didn’t quite match the surroundings. As we drove closer we saw the unmistakable silhouette of a building. Part of a building at least.

It was truly an eerie place. When we got out of the car I realized I have NEVER experienced silence like that before. It was the quietest place I have ever been. The only sound was the occasional buzzing of a fly, other than that, nothing. No wind, no traffic, no airplanes, nothing. The total absence of sound made this failed town feel even more tragic.

The only remaining buildings are the school and what was once a modern hotel with running water and climate control, the Hotel Metropolis. The whole atmosphere was creepy and somber, in exactly the way you want a ghost town to be. This place felt like it really did have ghosts watching our every move.