There are other kinds of company towns, too. I once very carefully considered buying the town of Gilchrist, Oregon, which had been a company town for a logging outfit that once had extensive holding of timberland in the area. There was then a little ghost town with ~140 houses, a bowling alley, supermarket, theatre, and similar amenities appropriate to such a town in the 1940s, during Gilchrist's heyday. When I was thinking of buying Gilchrist for ~$1.1M lock stock and barrel, the surrounding hills and dales of the central Oregon coast were there an extraordinary expanse of stumps.
Apparently the logging company never bothered to replant any trees (that costs money) after they logged them, so when they ran out of trees the company ran out of business too, and the town died. I don't think anyone lived there, or had since about the 1970s when they logged the last spruce, hemlock, or doug fir. Someone had been caretaking the town for decades, though, because they'd maintained the roofs, repaired windows when the broke, and etc. They just ran out of trees. Sometimes people are so silly.
Thanks!
Wow, thanks for sharing that. The kind of mindless and stupid greed that would cut down all the trees and put themselves out of business is a testimonial of broken humanity.