The hook
The Bay Area has an actual ghost town: a former hunting-resort village in the South Bay marshes, abandoned since 1979, whose weathered cabins are slowly sinking into the mud.
01Why it's worth it
Drawbridge grew up in the 1880s on a marsh island between two rail drawbridges — at its peak a rowdy weekend town of duck-hunting clubs, lodges, and reportedly a speakeasy or two, reachable mainly by train. The water was overdrawn, the land subsided, the bay silted in, and the last resident left in 1979. What remains is startling to spot from a passing train: a scatter of collapsing wooden buildings leaning out of the pickleweed, being reclaimed at nature's pace. It's part of the Don Edwards refuge now and entry is strictly prohibited — the marsh is fragile, the structures are dangerous, and it's patrolled. But that's part of what makes it good: a piece of Bay Area history you can only witness, not consume.
02How to experience it
Two legitimate ways: ride the Capitol Corridor/Altamont train between San Jose and Fremont and watch the east side of the tracks in the sloughs south of the Fremont station — the buildings are unmistakable — or walk the Mallard Slough Trail spur from the refuge's Environmental Education Center in Alviso with binoculars. The refuge occasionally runs docent talks on the town's history. Don't walk the tracks; people have died trying.