The Salton Sea

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This lake is barely over 100 years old and was created as a result of an unusually large snow melt from Colorado and high rates of precipitation in a single winter season. So why the salt? Salton was a salt mining town until it's flooding in 1905. High levels of bacteria created infections that would wipe out large number of fish in the 1980s and 1990s. This eventually caused botulism to become rampant in the area and began killing off birds as well. It's now littered with abandoned shelters, including a hotel/resort that was built in the 50s or so and failed, and corpses of countless animals.