California · Ghost town
Calico
A silver town of 1881 that Walter Knott bought in the 1950s and largely rebuilt, which raises the question of what you are actually looking at.
Position San Bernardino County, California · 34.9489, -116.8642
Calico was founded in 1881 on silver, in the Calico Mountains of the Mojave, three miles from both Barstow and Yermo and directly off Interstate 15. Giant letters spelling the name sit on the peaks behind it, visible from the highway.
In the 1950s Walter Knott, of Knott's Berry Farm, bought the site and rebuilt it. Only five of the original structures survive; everything else is a reconstruction. It is now a county park operating as Calico Ghost Town.
That history is worth carrying with you. Calico is a well made recreation of a mining town rather than a surviving one, and it is honest about being a visitor attraction. If you want an unreconstructed site, this is the wrong stop and Bodie is four hours north.
As an introduction for people who have never seen one, though, it works, and the access could not be easier.
Facts checked against the Wikipedia article Calico, California. The words above are ours.