What ruins reveal about America

废墟揭示出的美国精神

LINDSAY BAKER walks through the streets of Thurber carrying a hoe. It is handy for killing rattlesnakes, which lurk in the long grass that has all but swallowed the town. He also uses it to scrape in the dirt for what the people who once lived there left behind. He finds some shards of an old medicine bottle, the cap of a salt-shaker and a half-brick with markings that date it sometime between 1904 and 1936. If a brush fire clears the grass, you'll see artefacts like this everywhere, explains Mr Baker, a historian whose boyish enthusiasm for ghost towns belies his years.

兰德思.贝克（Lindsay Baker）拿着一把锄头穿过瑟伯（Thurber）的街道。这把锄头可以很方便的杀死那些潜伏在几乎掩盖了整个城镇的长草里的眼镜蛇。他也用这把锄头去挖土，希望在那些曾经有人住过的地方能挖到一些遗留下来的东西。他找到了一些旧药瓶的碎片、盐瓶的瓶帽和半块标有记号的砖，这些记号是在1904到 1936年之间的某一天标记上去的。贝克先生解释说，如果野火能够烧光这些草，你到处都可以看到像这样的人工制品。贝克先生是一名历史学家，他对这些废弃城镇的孩子气般的热爱掩饰了他的年龄。

America has a lot of ghost towns. There are 1,000 in Texas alone. Thurber was once home to 10,000 people. Now there are only five. In its busy days, Thurber was a coal town. Immigrants flocked there from Italy, Poland and Mexico to dig up fuel for steam trains. The coal was also used to fire bricks made from local clay. The town boasted churches, baseball teams and even an opera house.

美国有很多被废弃的城镇。在得克萨斯有1000个。瑟伯曾经是10000人的家。现在这里只有5个人。在它繁华的时候，这里是一个产煤的城镇。从意大利、波兰和墨西哥来的移民聚居在这里，他们挖煤来作为蒸气机车的燃料。煤也曾被用来烧制用本地粘土制造的砖。这个镇子最出名的有教堂、棒球队，甚至还有一间歌剧院。

But then someone found oil in Texas. Before long, the trains started burning oil instead of coal. Thurber's mine closed in 1926. And since cheap oil prompted Texans to start using asphalt instead of bricks to pave their roads, Thurber's brick kiln closed, too.

不过有人在得克萨斯发现了石油。不久以后，石油取代煤成为火车的燃料。瑟伯的矿山在1926年关闭了。因为石油便宜，得克萨斯开始使用沥青代替砖块来铺路，于是瑟伯的砖窑也关闭了。

The workers left. Their homes were sold for $50 to anyone who could carry them off. You can still see them in the surrounding countryside, serving as barns or storehouses. Little is left in Thurber itself but a smokestack, the graveyard (divided into Catholic, Protestant and black areas) and a few company buildings.

工人们都离开了。住宅以50美元的价格卖给那些能够搬走它们的人。你仍然可以在周围的村庄看到它们，它们现在被用作畜舍和仓库。几乎没有什么还留在瑟伯，除了一座烟窗、墓地（分成了天主教、新教和黑人3块）和一些公司建筑。

The story is not all wretched, however. Many workers found jobs in the oil business. The company that built Thurber struck oil and prospered. The old boss's daughter-in-law donated money for a museum to preserve Thurber's memory, which Mr Baker runs. His qualifications are ideal: besides teaching industrial history at nearby Tarleton State University, he is the author of “Ghost Towns of Texas” and “More Ghost Towns of Texas”.

然而，故事不完全是悲惨的。许多工人在石油行业找到了工作。建在瑟伯的公司进军石油业并取得成功。原老板的儿媳妇捐赠了一笔钱修建博物馆以保留对瑟伯的回忆，贝克先生正为了这件事而奔波。他的条件是完美的：他在附近的Tarleton州立大学教授工业史，同时他还是《得克萨斯的废墟》（“Ghost Towns of Texas”）和《更多的得克萨斯废墟》（“More Ghost Towns of Texas”）两本书的作者。

Something about ghost towns grips the American imagination. They provide an eerie backdrop for movies, children's books and theme-park rides. Ghost-town enthusiasts devote countless weekends to searching out remote examples, photographing them and posting their findings on websites such as www.ghosttowns.com. Typically, they give imprecise directions so that only the most committed ghost-towners can follow their footsteps.

一些关于废弃城镇的事情激发了美国人的想象力。他们成为电影、儿童图书和主题公园的怪诞背景。废弃城镇的粉丝们花费了无数个周末来寻找细微的例证，给它们拍照，并把他们的发现上传到诸如www.ghosttowns.com的网站上。特别地，他们只提供一些不太精准的指示，因此只有那些最醉心于废弃城镇的人才能跟随他们的脚步。

Ghost towns are sad places, but also monuments to American dynamism. When work moves, so do Americans. With so much space, especially in the West, it can make sense to let a town die. But its memory may live on. Ghost towns give people a tangible connection to a mysterious past, says Mr Baker. Others treat history more playfully. On a hill near Thurber, someone has built a hunting lodge in the shape of a Scottish castle.

废弃城镇是令人悲伤的地方，但也是美国物力论的纪念碑。当工作机会转移时，美国人也跟着转移。在很多地方，尤其是西部，让一个城镇死亡是很有意义的。但是它的记忆也许会一直活着。贝克先生说，废弃的城镇让美国人和神秘的过去有了切实的联系。有些人对待历史的态度是很搞笑的。在瑟伯附近的一座小山上，有人按照苏格兰城堡的样子修了一间狩猎屋。

Dec 19th 2007 | THURBER, TEXAS

From The Economist print edition