Stuck for Gift Ideas for That Person Who Has Everything? Try Getting 'Em Their Own Town!

Maybe that special somebody in your life has recently been dropping subtle little hints like 'Wouldn't it be nice to find somewhere to get away from it all?' or 'Hey- just get me a remote and sparsely populated municipality for Christmas this year'.

Well you're in luck, friends. There just happens to be a few such towns out there for sale on the open market. Naturally, I wouldn't even bother mentioning them unless there were some sort of railways involved.

Railpictures.net photo- Darryl Bond

The first such locale is down in the mountainous West Coast region on New Zealand's South Island and is called Otira. Otira has a population of roughly 44 and features a pub, fire station, 18 homes (14 of them occupied by tenants), a school and of course, a railway depot. Otira started out on a stop on the trans-Alpine stagecoach route in the 1860s, but served as railhead to the west coast until the Otira tunnel was completed in 1923.

The town is situated along KiwiRail's busy Midland line between Christchurch and Greymouth, which crests New Zealand's Southern Alps. Aside from the daily TranzAlpine Express, the line sees regular freight in the form of coal, dairy products and lumber from the West Coast to the rest of New Zealand or the port of Lyttleton for export. The western end of the 5 mile Otira Tunnel is just outside of Otira proper as well.
Otira is also located along NZ Highway 73 and flanked by Arthur's Pass National Park on three sides. This stretch of Highway 73 also boasts the 1999-built 440 meter Otira Viaduct (above), which replaced a winding, treacherous and landslide-prone stretch of highway.

But as of June 2010 it's all up for sale with the asking price of NZ$1.5 million ($1.1 million US). The current owners have put the town on the market after purchasing it for NZ$80,000 in the late 1990s. By comparison, NZ$1.5 million could get you a good-sized upscale home in suburban Auckland.

Assuming that Otira goes for anywhere near its asking price while factoring in a kiwi property boom and increase in value of the New Zealand dollar to the equation and the couple- Bill and Christine Hennah- will have gotten quite the return on their initial investment.

Although Bill and Christine had invested alot of TLC into the town over the last decade or so, Bill's sore shoulder and Christine's arthritis are slowing them down, leading them to put it on the market. The couple purchased the schoolhouse to move into once they 'retire' from owning Otira and a buyer for the town is found. The couple says they've been entertaining offers from as far afield as Canada, Malaysia, the UK and Norway.

For those of you in North America who want a town of your own but without the lengthy trans-Pacific flight, the northeastern Nevada town of Currie could be just what you're looking for.
Currie is located along US Highway 93 and the dormant Nevada Northern Railroad right of way in southern Elko county, NV. The unincorporated town got its name from the nearby ranch of Joseph Currie, who settled in the area in the 1880s. Currie started out as a stagecoach and freight stop, but with the discovery of copper in nearby Ely, NV the Nevada Northern Railroad was constructed between Ely and the Southern Pacific Junction at Cobre, NV (some 140 miles). The railway was completed in 1906 and a railway station and telegraph office opened up in Currie that same year.

Passenger service along the Nevada Northern halted in 1941 (by which point the NN had become a subsidiary of Kennecott Copper) and freight service continued until the closure of the mines in the Ely area in 1983. The line was then acquired by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in 1987 in anticipation of servicing a coal-fired power plant that was never built. However, the line saw a revival in the late 1990s when Australian mining company BHP leased the line to ship copper ore concentrate from Rieptown, NV to the Union Pacific interchange at Shafter. The line was abandoned in 1999 and although copper mining resumed around 2004, the ore was hauled by truck and the line through Currie remained dormant.

In 2007, the LA Department of Water and Power sold the line to the City of Ely and White Pine County to the south despite efforts of some salvage outfits to seize the line, rip up the rails and sell them for scrap. Although it was hoped that the revived mine traffic could make its way to rails along with coal, more recent plans to construct a coal burning power plant outside of Ely were thwarted last year.


So while there may not be the rumble of freight trains rolling past the Currie depot (above), there's still the matter of a lonely stretch of US 93 making its way north from Las Vegas to Idaho and points north.

According to this site, the town includes an RV park, the Goshute Mercantile (below), a schoolhouse, the old Currie hotel and the Nevada Northern depot. There's also a Nevada Highway Department Maintenance yard in town, but that's not included in the sale.

Although classified as a ghost town, Currie is thought to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 residents. The Currie school only taught up through grade 8 before shutting down in 2001, and the nearest bus stop was 35 miles away. Any children remaining in Currie would have to be homeschooled or boarded in Ely.

The town has apparently been on the market for a decade, although a cursory search indicates there has been no mention of a buyer since notice went up of Currie being for sale.

But with that in mind, good NANESB! reader, think of how that special somebody's eyes will light up when they see one of these remote and sparsely populated (but scenic!) towns under the Christmas tree this year.

Food for thought.