Exploring a real-life ghost town nestled at the foot of the NC mountains

Ghost towns are hidden all across North Carolina – hidden beneath deep lakes, on top our tallest mountains and even on islands off the coast. Some ruins are even hidden in plain sight in rural parts of the Old North State.

While many of these ghost towns are in various states of decay or in places that are difficult to reach, there is one particular ghost town hidden at the foot of Appalachia where visitors are welcome to explore – and even stay the night.

Tucked away near Hildebran, the Henry River Mill Village was built over a century ago and has been abandoned for around 50 years. The ruins were allowed to decay over the decades, allowing the scene to become so dystopian that it was used as major filming location for post-apocalyptic film The Hunger Games.

The final resident left the fading village in the 1980s, leaving behind a strikingly intact ghost town full of more than a dozen wooden mill houses, a two-story brick shop crawling with ivy, overgrown stone stairways to nowhere and ruins of the old mill that once played a central role in this village.

Stay overnight in a haunted ghost town

While many of North Carolina's ghost towns require intense hiking or a boat trip in order to visit, the Henry River Mill village is now open for visitors who want to learn about history.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019, restoration work has been done on the historic mill village, which now even offers overnight accommodations.

Built in the very early 1900s, the remaining wooden structures of the century-old village provided a glimpse into historic life in little mountain mill villages. Even today, a satellite view shows the clear layout of a town – unlike other ghost towns that have been almost completely taken back by nature.

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With the loss of the mill in the 1970s, people slowly left the town behind. Some of the town was lost to fire or decay; however, there's a two-story brick store and several mill village homes.

"The mill village, though decaying, survives unspoiled by modern intrusions and material alterations. The Henry River Mill Village is a distinguished collection of unaltered mill housing in a planned rural village associated with North Carolina’s important textile industry in the early twentieth century," says the village's website.

Take a closer look at the satellite view and you may recognize the home of Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games – as Henry River Mill Village was used in the filming of District 12 in the movie.

Visitors are allowed to step inside one mill home – the one used in the movie as Katniss' house. Many other homes allow a view through broken windows to view their decaying innards, overgrown with ivy, rotting stairways and hollowed-out rooms built over a century ago.

"Henry River is an example of history that seems so distant, yet it can still be seen, touched and heard with our own eyes and ears," according to their website.

Is Henry River Mill Village a haunted ghost town?

Some locals and paranormal investigators claim the ghost town is inhabited by actual ghosts – spirits of those who never moved away, even decades after the village was abandoned.

Some locals say there have been sightings of a phantom lantern wandering through the village at night. Others claim to have heard footsteps or voices from inside the cracked and boarded up windows of the locked brick store.

The site of the old mill is especially haunted, according to legends. Some say they've seen men and even horses walking out in those woods in the wee hours of the morning, as if they are continuing to get up and go to work as they always did.

The ghost town offers paranormal tours at night, allowing visitors to get a glimpse into the haunted history of the town.

Visitors can explore most of the village on foot, peeking into houses and wandering the overgrown landscape. The village offers historic tours as well as ghost tours – offering a glimpse into the spooky legends and tales associated with the long-abandoned ghost town. Then, if you're brave enough, you can even stay the night in one of the restored mill houses and see for yourself if the ghost stories are true.

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