It was once home to 4,000 residents (Picture: Google)

What was once a thriving town with homes, businesses and a school has been gathering dust since 1983.

More than 4,000 people lived in Eagle Mountain in its heyday many decades ago until it slowly became merely an empty shell.

It stands today in the California desert in the USA looking almost exactly the same as it did when it was abandoned 40 years ago.

But now, the eerie ghost town near the Joshua Tree National Park could soon be brought back to life once again after a mystery buyer snapped it up for a whopping £18million ($22.5m).

A company named Ecology Mountain Holdings has purchased the town from another business, named Eagle Mountain Acquisition LLC. 

Very little is known about the buyers other than the business address which is listed as Cerritos, California – and the fact it’s reportedly associated with Ecology Transportation Services, which is known for its red big rigs.

So how did it come to be completely deserted in the first place?

Eagle Mountain has been abandoned since 1983

It sits in the Californian desert near Joshua Tree National Park (Picture: metro.co.uk)

Well, Eagle Mountain was previously a company town for Kaiser Steel and most people in the community were employed by the mine.

Workers who lived in the area drilled in search of iron ore and even broke records for daily production levels once upon a time, reports SFGATE.

But when a high level of outcomes dropped, the mine was closed and much of the population left.

It had managed to thrive from the end of the 1940s onwards before it eventually started to fizzle out in the 1970s.

A mystery buyer has snapped up the town for £18million (Picture: Google)

By November 1981, Kaiser Steel started phasing out the mine and two years later, the final nail was hammered into the Eagle Mountain’s coffin – and it was left completely desolate. 

Since then? It’s been mainly preserved by sand and a few foreman who have kept watch over the hundreds of abandoned structures in what was once an idyllic setting.

The town’s former bowling alley, cafe and other buildings also housed 438 inmates in a low-security prison from 1988 onwards, until it was forced to close after two men were killed in a riot in 2003.

Hollywood even came calling when it needed unique backdrops for a movie – most notably, the climax for Christopher Nolan’s film Tenet was shot in the town. 

The town could be brought back to life again (Picture: Google)

Quite what the future holds for Eagle Mountain remains to be seen, but there could be one clue.

Another town named Desert Center sits on the same road just over 12 miles away and a trucking mogul called Balwinder S. Wraich bought 1,000 acres of land there in 2021.

He co-owns the company Wraich Transport in nearby Fontana and recently said: ‘We’re going to develop a truck stop, gas station and hotel.

‘There is no food for 40 miles. My goal is to get something big in the next two years. It’s going to help the community.’

An abandoned vintage diner was recently uncovered in Canada with condiments and coffee cups still left out on the tables.

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The empty town has been gathering dust since 1983.