Early settlers stand outside a business in Helvetia, now one of 15 ghost towns in Carver County.

The term “ghost town” usually brings to mind images of dusty western streets bordered by dilapidated buildings and traveled only by tumbleweeds.

Surely Carver County, a burgeoning suburb of the Twin Cities, isn’t home to any such godforsaken place … right?

Think again. When was the last time you took a jaunt through Oberles Corners, stopped by St. Clair or had an appointment in Yorkville?

According to Erin Anderson, education coordinator at the Carver County Historical Society, there are no fewer than 15 ghost towns, more properly known as “lost communities,” within the county’s borders.

“We know these places existed, but it is hard to know much about them,” said Anderson, who explained that most towns were too small or didn’t last long enough to have their own newspapers, and photographic evidence of those cities is rare.

Indeed, some of the towns never existed at all. St. Clair, for example, is known as a “paper city” because it was marked out on plat maps and lots were sold, but no buildings were ever constructed.

According to the map provided by the historical society, there are 16 towns currently existing in the county, while 15 have been “lost” (not all of the existing towns are official cities with postal service, but they are distinct communities that have retained their identity). What caused half of the cities originally founded in the area to fail?

Anderson said that the success of each city depended mainly on five factors: transportation, natural resources, people, planning and luck.

When the region first opened for settlement in 1851, the most efficient mode of travel was by water. The Minnesota River allowed the passage of steamboats, and the Crow River helped settlers reach farther inland.

Some of the lost communities, such as Helvetia and San Francisco, were located near rivers and established themselves early on as river towns. When the railroad came to the county in 1871, however, the advantage held by river towns evaporated. Travel by rail was faster and more reliable, and the lack of a rail connection became the death sentence for many towns.

Natural resources were another important factor in a town’s success. Areas now occupied by Hamburg and Cologne were known to have rich soil, well suited for farming. However, a dense forest, known as the Big Woods, covered most of the county when it first opened for settlement, and most settlers needed two or three years to clear their land before producing a crop. Availability of fish, game and edible vegetation thus proved an important factor in deciding where a town began.

Of course one of the biggest factors in a town’s success was the effort of its citizens —along with its name. Much of Carver County was, and remains, a region defined by ethnicity. The majority of settlers were either German or Swedish. The Germans congregated in places like Hamburg, New Germany and Cologne. The Swedes tended to avoid those cities in favor of communities like Scandia, Swede Lake and East Union.

The founder of Helvetia was Swiss and a relative outsider. Helvetia is the ancient name for Switzerland, and Swedes and Germans alike avoided the place until it was eventually renamed Hollywood (not the current Hollywood).

Also, advertisement was a major factor in a city’s success in the mid-1800s, and citizens who stepped into leadership roles and advertised their city in both national and international newspapers tended to attract greater numbers of immigrants.

Finally, the success of communities in Carver County was dependent largely upon luck. Weather, grasshopper plagues and disease all played a part in the formation of Carver County’s modern geography

Helvetia, for example, experienced an outbreak of diphtheria that killed off a large number of citizens.

San Francisco, named after the California city, got off to a good start and became the original county seat in 1855, but the county commissioners abandoned the community in 1856 in favor of Chaska. That snub, combined with uninspired leadership (lack of advertising) and the growth of Chaska and Carver, eventually led the once promising young town to wither.

Some cities were so close together — such as Benton and Cologne — that whichever town had the more promising opportunities at the time eventually swallowed up or crowded out its neighbor.

Despite their mysterious and chilling title, most Carver County ghost towns don’t quite fit the common perception. Some, such as St. Clair, never actually existed in the first place. There are no ruins, but the town’s footprint remains on historical maps nevertheless, a stillborn victim of the forces that shaped early settlement.

In other places, a few houses or a small neighborhood might actually remain, but the buildings have been modernized even as the location’s historical identity slipped away. The structures aren’t necessarily broken down, there are no tumbleweeds and there’s no abandoned gold mine out back, but for those who wish to rediscover them, the Carver County ghost towns are just as authentic as any.