New Jersey Ghost Towns: Along the Delaware River are entire towns where the people were forced out by the government in the 60s because they were going to flood the towns and build a huge reservoir. This was known as the ‘Tocks River Project’ (there are numerous books on the subject). After this ‘forced evacuation’ two problems came up. The first was the Vietnam War which caused all funding to be diverted toward the war effort. The second, although not widely publicized, was the fact that the mountain that was supposed to support the proposed dam, didn’t have the right foundation to hold the water back as previously thought. As the genius of government decisions go, they tried to raise funds for the project by putting an ad in the local newspapers and renting out the abandoned houses. Well, you can imagine how those people felt who were forced out of their homes and lost everything to see ‘migrating hippies’ from New York City descending down on the area in droves. Hundreds squatted in these homes getting government checks to live there. One night, again, the government had the National Guard and State Police Agencies descend down upon the area to chase the squatters. Now, years later, you can see the remnants of these deserted houses and towns, now in the Federal Domain, but since the government is pretty much fund-less, what’s left of the houses, the towns and the surrounding land lie in limbo in a bunch of government red tape. In this video, check out the Bridge To …
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