The Hawaiian Islands are steeped in history, from the first Europeans visiting the islands in 1778 and the establishment of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1795 to Hawaii’s admittance to the United States of America in 1959. But not all of Hawaiian history is remembered fondly, as is the case with Molokai’s leper colonies, where hundreds of individuals with the chronic infection were forced into isolated quarantine for more than one hundred years.

Though the Kalaupapa and Kalawao might not technically be classified as ghost towns, the county in which these former leper colonies are located is the least populated county in the entire United States, and that’s certainly saying something. And the cemeteries you’ll find here? Well, you’ll just have to read on to learn about the heartbreak that took place here.

Located on the tiny island of Molokai, with the ocean on one side and giant 1,600-foot cliffs on the other, are the Kalawao and Kalaupapa Leper Colonies — described by Robert Louis Stevenson as a “prison fortified by nature.”

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Jimmy Emerson, DVM/Flickr

In order to prevent the transmission of leprosy, the Kingdom of Hawaii passed a law in 1865 to send leprosy patients to an isolation settlement on Molokai.

Jimmy Emerson, DVM/Flickr

The leper colony was founded in Kalawao in 1866 with a hospital, two churches, and several homes. It served as the home of the U.S. Leprosy Investigation Station in the early 1900s but moved three miles away to Kalaupapa shortly after because it offered a warmer, drier climate and easier access to the sea.

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At its peak occupation in 1890, approximately 1,100 individuals who suffered from leprosy lived in the colony. Operations seized in 1969.

Jimmy Emerson, DVM/Flickr

In 1980, the Kalaupapa National Historical Park was established in order to preserve the culture and physical settings of this former leper colony. The area is home to a dwindling population, those of whom are outnumbered exponentially by those in the cemetery — where an estimated 2,000 graves lie unmarked in addition to those with headstones.

jomilo75/Flickr

In fact, there are twenty documented cemeteries on the Kalaupapa Peninsula, and there’s no telling how many bodies are buried within this island prison.

NPS CulturalLandscapes/Flickr

University of Hawaii - West Oahu/Flickr

These historic tombs at the Siloama Churchyard, constructed from lava rock and lime mortar, have begun to deteriorate and collapse throughout the decades. Despite a recent effort to restore several of the tombs by the National Parks Service, the graveyard still lends itself to the eerie — especially at night, or in black and white.

NPS CulturalLandscapes/Flickr

There are no roads that lead to Kalaupapa — only a torturous mountain path accessible by hiking, or by riding on the back of a mule.

Jill /Blue Moonbeam Studios/Flickr

To learn more about the island of Molokai, click here, and for a history lesson about a Hawaiian heiau rife with human sacrifice, click here.

Lisa Sasser/Flickr

Jimmy Emerson, DVM/Flickr

jomilo75/Flickr

NPS CulturalLandscapes/Flickr

University of Hawaii - West Oahu/Flickr

Jill /Blue Moonbeam Studios/Flickr

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