The Dumb Mistake That Erased a US Town from the Map

Bright Side

Did you know there was once a town called Singapore in Michigan? It was founded in 1837 and thrived thanks to the lumber and shipping industry. But in 1871, the townspeople made a huge mistake—they cut down all the white pine trees that were holding back the sand dunes. Without the trees, strong winds blew massive amounts of sand into the town, burying it completely. By the time they realized what had happened, it was too late, and people had to evacuate. Today, Singapore is a ghost town, completely hidden beneath the sand, leaving behind only its eerie legend.

Transcript

00:00If there was a contest for being a bad town, Singapore would be the winner.

00:05And no, I'm not talking about Singapore in Asia.

00:08I'm talking about a small town called Singapore in Michigan, United States,

00:13that buried itself because of one simple mistake.

00:17This tiny, unlucky settlement was founded in 1837 by O'Shea Wilder.

00:23He had a dream to build a town and did just that.

00:26But he definitely didn't know how the city would end.

00:31After the first year, it struggled economically.

00:34But soon after, it found its path in lumber work.

00:36At its finest, it had a population of 300 people.

00:41In 1842, the city experienced a pretty hard winter.

00:46Its inhabitants were left with no food and no way of surviving.

00:50But by some miracle, they found a ship that had recently sunk near the town's coasts.

00:54Luckily, the ship was packed to the brim with all kinds of food.

00:59They also had one of the best lighthouses, but not for long because it fell down and got destroyed in a few years.

01:05People didn't restore it, saying that they didn't need one despite being a hotspot for ships.

01:10That's nice of them.

01:12Then a couple of years later, everything started going downhill.

01:16And half of the Midwest burned in a big fire.

01:19Surrounding towns turned into ashes, but this place remained intact.

01:25Trees were burned in the surrounding towns, but Singapore had an untouched forest ready to be harvested.

01:31They began cutting trees, particularly the white pine tree.

01:35This, of course, busted the town's economy.

01:38As we all know, cutting a lot of trees is pretty bad.

01:41But nobody could predict what would happen next, unless they were experts in dunes.

01:48The location of Singapore was unique.

01:51On the left side, they had a lovely beach by Lake Michigan.

01:55In front of them, there was a river, and everything else was a forest.

01:58But the most critical part of the town was the forest near the beach, which was sitting on top of sand dunes.

02:05I don't know if you know this, but trees don't usually grow in sand, but I guess this place was special.

02:10So, these dunes weren't like those typical ones in the Sahara or any other desert.

02:15Such dunes can only be found near the ocean or, in this rare case, on the coast of Lake Michigan.

02:20This formation can be more than 4,000 years old and as tall as 196 feet.

02:27Their formation is a pretty simple process.

02:30The river that enters the lake carries tons of sand.

02:33Then, the sand is distributed all over the beach by waves.

02:37Later, it dries out and is blown by the wind, but not far.

02:41It's caught by all kinds of vegetation.

02:44And voila, you have a sand dune!

02:46This process has been heavily studied by scientists, and it's been concluded that plants play an essential role here.

02:52They stabilize the dunes by preventing the sand from being blown out, and the roots help the sand not to fall apart.

02:59Plus, they hold water, and if you've ever made a sandcastle, you know wet sand doesn't fall apart.

03:06If only the Singaporeans had known this before starting their tree-cutting business!

03:11Plants develop in a couple of stages.

03:16The first stage is called pioneers.

03:18Some plants begin the dune-building process, but over time, they perish and become food for the next generation of plants, which is called scrub.

03:28In this category, tiny trees and vines are extremely vulnerable, but important for what comes next.

03:34If everything goes right, a rare thing in sandy areas will grow.

03:39A forest!

03:39This stage of plants is so unusual in such regions that it can only be seen in the U.S. on the Atlantic coast or near Lake Michigan.

03:49Forests like the one in Singapore are one in a million because they mostly consist of white pine trees.

03:55That's one of the best woods for lumber.

03:58Now let me tell you a little secret.

04:00Those pines were the only thing keeping the sand dunes in place.

04:03Well, after they'd cut down all the trees on the dunes, the Singaporeans realized they had made a massive mistake.

04:11After not so much time, the sand got dry.

04:14And guess what?

04:15The wind started carrying it right into the town.

04:18In a panic, they somehow moved their houses onto log boats, took them downriver, and unloaded them in the next town, Saugatang.

04:25Some of the houses are still in use now.

04:29Some people were either stubborn or couldn't load their giant houses on logs, and they stayed in the town.

04:35A family lived in a three-story house, and as the wind blew, the house was slowly getting covered with sand.

04:42They moved upstairs as the floors beneath them became unavailable.

04:46Eventually, they ran out of floors.

04:49Instead of Santa Claus coming down their chimney, they got a pile of sand.

04:53And when that happened, they finally decided to move out of Singapore.

04:58In 1894, the city was officially declared a ghost town.

05:02This is not an isolated case.

05:04Many houses are getting buried now.

05:07People are paying tons of money to remove sand from their homes, and most cases occur around Lake Michigan.

05:13There are also a few in Africa.

05:16The Sahara dunes can move and cover the whole of Europe.

05:19You might be wondering what's going on in Singapore today.

05:23Basically, it's a big pile of sand with a sign that says there is a whole town underneath.

05:28The sand preserves around 37 houses.

05:31Maybe one day, archaeologists will find the town and dig it out, restoring it once again in its final glory.

05:39But people who live there said that it was not worth the effort.

05:42Many building projects have been proposed there.

05:44But historians believe the town is important from a historical perspective, and are against building anything there.

05:51Whatever they do, let's hope they won't cut the trees down again.

05:54We can all agree that what happened in Singapore is terrible for people.

06:01But, unfortunately, it's not the only occurrence of its kind in the U.S.

06:06This time, trees and dunes had nothing to do with it.

06:09The next phenomenon, called the Dust Bowl, covered a large area, simultaneously affecting a few states.

06:16Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico.

06:21The first people who saw the land around these states weren't too happy about it, and said it wasn't good for farming because it was too dry.

06:28They even called it the Great American Desert, since there wasn't any water or trees over there.

06:33But, some people took it as a challenge, and stayed there.

06:37They believed it would eventually rain, and the land would magically become fertile.

06:42It happened in the 1900s, and many new machines helping farmers with their work were being developed.

06:48Unfortunately, they overworked the land in the next 30 years, making it even drier.

06:53And yeah, the rain they had been hoping for never arrived.

06:57Instead, a big drought occurred.

06:59It lasted for 10 years, which further worsened the situation.

07:04More than 1 million acres were affected by this colossal Dust Bowl.

07:09The drought worsened yearly, and eventually, the topsoil turned into dust, blown around by the wind, covering houses everywhere.

07:18The dust even reached Washington, D.C.

07:21But not all hope was lost, since people started trying to revive the land.

07:25The Civilian Conservation Corporation began planting around 200 million trees from Texas to Canada.

07:33To prevent the soil from being blown out, farmers began implementing new techniques, like crop rotation, that helped retain water.

07:41Authorities even started paying farmers to start working on the land to improve the condition further.

07:47All this hard work started paying off, and by the 1930s, the dust blowing was reduced by as much as 65%.

07:55But since 75% of the topsoil has already been displaced, it took another 8 to 10 years for the region to fully recover.

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