Atsion
While they don't charge admission to this town, they take another kind of toll. A highway runs straight through the middle of this quiet area, attracting ruin robbers and mowing down an unknown number of structures.
This is another iron forge town, like Batsto, and likely died a similar economic death. But Atsion is still well-preserved, having escaped most natural disasters. The ironmaster's mansion remains mostly intact, as well as many buildings, including a cemetery with headstones dating back to the 1700s. The town is named after the Native-American word Atsayunk, which is the name of a nearby stream. Because of the area's mysterious immunity to town-killers such as fire and flood, Atsion is not entirely dead. Although no one uses the original buildings, there are several modern houses on the shores of a nearby lake. This has proven both a blessing and a curse to the preservation of the area, since the locals seem to have a dampening effect on the rate of human interference with the site. On the other hand, the lake-dwellers seem to have done their fair share of looting as well, since several large items seem to have been taken from the town which could not have traveled very far.
Atsion was beautiful and sorrowful all at once. I had car trouble on the way to the site, so I knew I wouldn't have a lot of daylight to explore, but I decided to go anyway. I arrived during the sunset, which lent the area a warmer feeling, and the large shadows cast by the dominant mansion spread over the town. The mansion is amazing; very few structures of its size from the period are still standing, and even in death it seemed imposing and authoritative. On closer examination, the mansion has clearly had its share of interference. The door to the place had been carefully removed by some previous visitor - hinge holes were still intact. One room showed signs of smoke damage, but I believe it to be recent.
Found one 12' by 12' room with separate chimney. This room was built from a different type of stone and the masonrywork was more careful than in the rest of the mansion. Clearly, this was an expansion. I was able to take home and analyze a bit of the masonry, and I concluded that it was of a type not formulated until shortly before Atsion's DOD. It seems that the town (or at least, the ironmaster's mansion) was expanding right up to the economic crash. This suggests that the ironmaster was overspending and the higher costs were having an adverse affect on the town's economy. It is probable that this hastened the downfall of Atsion, if it did not cause the city-death outright.