This is part four of a nine part series on international ghost towns.

Holland Island was founded in the 1600s. Primarily populated by farmers and fisherman, by 1910 Holland Island was the most populated of the Chesapeake Bay’s large collection of islands. During this time, about 360 people lived on the island in about 70 homes, and supported a community with multiple stores, a post office, a two-room school with two teachers, a church, a baseball team, a community center, and a doctor.

Unfortunately, the original town founders built their town on a island made of silt and clay, not rock.

In 1914, the wind and tide began to erode the island, and the majority of the town’s residents relocated to the mainland. Over the next century, the town completely collapsed. The final house, originally built in 1888, finally fell in 2010, despite the efforts to keep it standing by Stephen White, a local minister and founder of the The Holland Island Preservation Foundation.

Images via Climate Howard, Mongoose of Mystery,

Video via .

Via The Weather Channel, Wikipedia, The Washington Post, Something Interesting, The Baltimore Sun and Save Holland Island.