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A Wall Street website’s ranking of the country’s top “ghost towns” pegged Vilas County, Wis., as the second-most-ghostly county in the country. A statement from the Vilas County Economic Development Corp. begs to differ.

The ranking, produced by 24/7 Wall Street, puts Lake County, Mich., at the top, followed by Vilas County, Wis., Summit County, Colo., Worchester County, Md., Mono County, Calif., Dare County, N.C., Duke County, Mass., Sawyer County, Wis., Burnett County, Wis., and Aitkin County, Minn. For those counting, that means Wisconsin has three of the ghostliest counties in America. All 10 of the top-ranked counties have housing vacancies ranging from 54 percent to 66 percent.

In Vilas County, where the rate is 62 percent, the Economic Development Corp. says that all but 2 percent of those vacancies are seasonal homes. Vilas County – like the other two Wisconsin counties ranked – is located in an area of northern Wisconsin favored by vacationers and buyers of summer retreats. The Website’s source, the U.S. Census, counts the houses as vacant because their owners only live there part-time, the Vilas County group notes.

Its executive director, Ken Stubbe, says in the statement, “The author made deeply flawed conclusions, which were then supported by what appear to be random thoughts and assumptions about our local economy.”

Vilas County (click to enlarge)

Among the website’s observations: “The county is plagued by two things. The first is that it has been a tourist area for Wisconsin residents. The second is that a significant part of the county’s economy depends on logging, forestry and construction industries, each of which struggled during the recession.”

A pattern emerges in the descriptions of the other counties; almost all of them are described as “vacation areas” or “near to several major ski resorts.”

Stubbe might not have minded the ranking so much, but it has apparently been passed around various financial websites and gotten a fair amount of readership.

According to the statement, Vilas County “ghosts” include Steve Burrill, CEO of a San Francisco financial services firm, and former commerce secretary (and almost-ran for the U.S. Senate) Dick Leinenkugel. He now works for MillerCoors.

“I think we have more angels than ghosts in Vilas County,” Stubbe claims.

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