A GHOST town will leave most people afraid but one man calls it home and refuses to leave.

Wes Engstrom, 92, is one of only 12 people who resides in Liberty, Washington – about 80 miles east of Seattle – and is the town’s oldest living resident.

He first came to the small mining town in search of gold but soon, the area was mostly abandoned.

“I kind of look at this place as paradise, you see?” Engstrom told Oregon Public Broadcasting.

The town’s population grew by 33% in just a few years.

“I used to say that we have a population of nine people and five dogs,” Engstrom told the outlet.

“But the population has gone up now after my son moved in and a few others, so it’s probably 12 people now. We’re booming.”

The town does get a few curious wanderers around the Halloween season, however, they’re not counted in the official population.

“We have a few ghosts down there in the old house. Well, Mamie Caldwell lived in this house and built this house down below,” said Engstrom.

“And, yeah, she sometimes shows up in the closet down there. And there’s a few up in the mountain here.”

In all the years he’s spent in Liberty, Engstrom has witnessed fights between the mining companies and the federal government, which accused the residents of “squatting” on federal land.

There was no evidence that designated the area as a mining townsite, according to Engstrom.

Eventually, Congress corrected the issue and the town was declared a historic district.

But despite being a live-in historian of the town, Engstrom admitted that he wasn’t always a fan.

Read Related Also: Israeli student Sahar Baruch, 25, killed in ‘failed rescue mission’ in Gaza two months after he was kidnapped by Hamas

“I wasn’t interested at all, until I got stuck with all these papers and things that needed to be reorganized,” he said.

“And I started looking up a few things and I just got hooked.”

Others have been similarly interested in the town for centuries as Liberty housed unique minerals and gems that drew people into what became known as the Swauk Mining District.

It has deposits of a frame form of gold, known as crystalline wire gold.

“Liberty nuggets were formed when masses of wire crystalline gold were eroded from rocks and tumbled into solid-looking nuggets by the Columbia River fifteen million years ago,” said Engstrom.

Miners also came to the town in search of Ellensburg Blue Agates, one of the rarest gemstones in the world.

Engstrom has a piece of old mining equipment called an arrastra in his backyard. After turning it on, water came out the side.

“You’d throw the gold ore in there, and that rock would crush your gold ore, and the gold would fall to the bottom,” he said.

It’s the only working historic mining equipment left in town, he added.

Engstrom built the arrastra in 1974 as a replica of one from the 1930s Virden mining camp.

The town has plans to hang its own version of the Liberty Bell in the town center.

“The Liberty townsite stands for liberty, which is another way of saying freedom,” said Engstrom.

He wants to remind people of the small town’s relics and history.

“It’s a living ghost town,” he said. “You have to come in and sort of experience the spirit of the place. Because that’s what it’s all about.”