Evansville story I found

[Stormblast]

I found this on the 4chan.org forums, in the paranormal section and thought I'd post it here to see what you guys think of it, or if you've possibly have ever heard of the place.

This is going to sound really silly, guys, but I promise it is entirely true.

I live in southern Indiana. the town is Evansville.

There's a small rural area just outside of the city I live in. It's bordered on three sides

by the river, and on the fourth by a bayou, so at times, it's cut off entirely from the

rest of indiana (during flood seasons.) We call this place 'Dogtown', owing to the name of

a tavern out there, but it's really called 'Union Township.'

I was introduced to this place via a friend of mine with a very fast car. Hardly any people

live out there anymore, and the main road follows the course of the river (indeed, if you

go off the road, you fall into the Ohio river), so we used to race out there.

One day he showed me an old building which, upon sight, scared the piss out of me. All the

buildings out there were old, uninhabited, and falling apart, but this one was particularly

terrifying. I asked him to turn around.

He told me it was a school, and that some dude murdered a bunch of people there. I took him

half seriously, but decided to figure out the story for myself. I was 17 or 18 at the time

and had just entered college as a history major, so I figured it'd be good practice.

I spent the next two years or so taking trips out there with friends, to the 'school' or to

other places in the area, and recording what happened. Long story short - lots of weird

nuts.

We broke into the 'school' a couple times. First time, we didn't get very far - me and one

of the other guys felt a terrible sinking sensation in our chest, and about that time, a

truck drove by, whereupon an old man yelled out the window, in proper scooby doo fashion,

'You kids get outta there, you here me?' Thankfully we were armed with baseball bats and

poles, just in case someone like him stopped and tried to threaten us. He drove on, but we

gtfo'd.

Another time we actually went in and stuff. There was a tricycle upstairs when we got up

there, and, after we looked around some more, it vanished. When we left it was in front of

the door, and when we returned to our car, 'MARY' was clearly written in the

water/condensation (whatever the crap you call that stuff) on the trunk.

Other weird things happened around that area. Twice, friends and I saw a black cloud,

similar to fog, that we couldn't penetrate with light. One time it was in a field right

before the 'school', and our flashlights wouldn't touch it at all. The next time was when

the place was flooded, we tried to go out there, only to turn around when we realized,

about halfway through the drive, that the 'black fog' covered the road just ahead.

Other strange things happen. Twice friends and I heard motorcycle noises speeding by our

car as we turned on one of the really dangerous S-curves near the river. Both times it

happened in the same spot.

We were also driving around out there during the day once and noticed a huge fire in the

distance. We got over to it and pinpointed exactly where it was (which wasn't hard to do,

seeing as it was at the intersection of two roads.) We also noticed that at this point our

compass was spinning in circles. More on this happening later

There's also an old iron train bridge out there the main road goes under. I've had lots of

nightmares about this place, and area folk legend is that the KKK used to hang people from

the bridge. Before knowing of said folk legend, I noticed that I and other friends

experienced choking sensations when going under the bridge. This was documented separately

by a few of us without confronting the others about it.

A wiccan friend of mine says that she 'knows' the entire area is something of a 'portal

between dimensions', that the black fog has something to do with that, and that there's

something really evil living around and under the iron bridge. I don't buy that for a

moment, but I do think something strange is going on. (And I have seen a big lumbering

thing walking on top of the bridge, as has one of my friends who was with me, but... that

could have just been some random dude. at three am. on an old bridge that you can't get to

without climbing. I don't know.)
I ended up doing my history major senior thesis on the place. 40+ pages, usage of the 1850

census, whooboy. In the process, though, I was totally looking for folktales and things

which would have caused whatever is out there. I didn't find much. The KKK did have a

strong presence out there, but no hangings that I could find.

The "school" is actually the old powerhouse for a huge lock and dam complex that used to be

out there, until they dynamited it in the 1970s.

There were some boys that got killed there by Native Americans a long, long time ago. And

flooding frequently wiped out entire farmsteads.

Strangely enough - the place where we saw the fire used to be Rahm Station, an old train

station/general store/etc. It and the few houses around it caught fire a long, long time

ago. But beyond that, I have no idea what the hell is going on out there.

My dad grew up around here and said that his friends and family always thought the place

was 'evil.' I've heard similar things from other people and their families. The entire

place seems to be avoided and ignored.

I may never know what the f**k is up with that place.

[Scott]

I have heard of this. It is under the Evansville listing as "Haunted School' although it was never a school. It is on Old Henderson Road.

[Stormblast]

Thanks, that was quick. I might have to go check this place out for myself now, sounds pretty interesting.

[zeros]

Nice to know I'm not the only one who visits 4chan! lol. ;D

I have never heard this story....but you have me intersted now! Maybe I'll add this to the list of "things to do when I get to Southern Indiana".

If any should visit this place anytime soon, let us know how it goes. Take some pictures and stuff. I'd love to see it (Both not flooded and flooded)

[Stormblast]

I'm planning on going there possibly sometime in the next two weeks, only a couple hours drive from here.

[Stormblast]

Does the marker on this map indicate the exact location of the site? I'm looking at Google Maps right now, and I don't think Old Henderson Rd. continues that far. It looks like it turns into Golden Rule Rd, and then there's some kind of unmarked road that continues right before it does so, but it appears that it doesn't continue far.

[Scott]

Yeah, a little confusing. I can't find the site I found those directions off of, I thought I had it bookmarked (searching) He gave a fairly good account of it and history and gave directoins but they kind of flip flopped near the end. I Google Earth'd it and that's what I came up with. He started on Henderson Road and took it all the way to where the marker is.

[Stormblast]

Hmmm I might have to make a trip in advance in daylight just to makes sure you can still get to that area.

[Stormblast]

I actually made the trip down there last night, and it was a bit confusing. I found Old Henderson Rd and the Dogtown bar that the area is named after. I continued down Old Henderson Rd and eventually came to the old railroad bridge the story mentions. We stopped the car and got out a couple times, and didn't really see anything. My throat started to feel a bit tighter, but I'm pretty sure that's because I was thinking about what happened in the story, I wouldn't call it choking. Here's some pictures from the bridge, they aren't very good because I had to take most of them with just the moonlight since my flash isn't that great.




small bridge directly underneath the railroad bridge



Now we come to the creepiest part of the trip, we pass by a house that looks a bit odd, but really think nothing of it because we think that the location of the haunted "school house" is on top of this structure along the side of the road.





After stopping the car and going to the top we find that there's nothing there, all I could see was an empty field that was really overgrown. Anyway as we are driving we see this strange looking house and we all commented it on how creepy it looked, but really thought noting of it because the lights were on inside. Right after the house the road turns to gravel, after going on this part of the road for so long I decide to turn around because I thought I was somewhere else other than where I actually was. As we come back I wasn't looking at the house, but my friends were and they said they saw a little girl sitting on the ledge of one of the windows. We didn't really think much of this either, and I continued back down Old Henderson Rd back to pub to see if we perhaps missed anything along the way the first time. I pull into the parking lot of the tavern to think about what to do next. I look over and see a station that has fliers with maps of the area printed on them that bicyclists use. On the map it indicates two places that caught my attention "Old Dam Operations House" and "Old Lock & Dam", and the person in the story said the place was something like an old powerhouse instead of a school, so I figured this will be the place. As I study the map more it indicates where the road turns to gravel and apparently the creepy house with the lights on is actually the Old Dam Operations House. My first thought is "d**n, someone must've bought it and refurnished it, so now we can't get in." So we decide to go back to look at it from the road again anyway, since we drove all the way out there. Now I'm going to forewarn you, this may sound unrealistic, but I swear to anything that this is true. As we drive back towards the house, and once we get there I kind look at it and nothing is really that unusual. We drive past it, and I turn around in a driveway before the road goes to gravel again. As go past the house and we all look, and all of a sudden the lights in the middle room of the house just start to flicker on and off rapidly then suddenly a black silhouette of a little girl standing on the ledge of a second story window with her arms out kind of swaying and bobbing her head appears and my reaction was total shock followed by panic so I floored it and got the hell out of there. I've seen my friend get a bit freaked out when we've done some of our past investigations, but never like this, he had to call somebody else on his phone just to calm down. I got this picture of the house after driving by a couple more times, and not really seeing anything. I took a couple more, but they aren't very good, because I had to keep moving in the car because traffic on the road had started to pick up. Even this one isn't that great because I couldn't line up the shot in the dark.



I can't really say whether it was anything paranormal or not, could've been just some crazy local standing on the ledge of her window. Needless to say I was freaked out, and will definitely go back sometime soon.

Here's a picture of the map I picked up. Really handy, I wish all haunted areas would have these, even gives you the locations of a couple cemeteries nearby.

[zeros]

Where the orb/dust particle/bug is, is that the window you saw her from?

Something doesn't seem right with the door on the first floor and the window next too it (on the right). It's kind of hard to explain....but there's something....out of place? I don't know what it is....but when I look at those two places in the picture I get chills.

[Stormblast]

No. it was the window/door on the second floor right above the door on the first floor. She was just standing there with her arms up and her head bobbing up, down and side to side, with almost like a strobe like effect from the lights in the background flickering on and off so quickly. I still can't get it out of my mind all the time, I think about it and start to shake.

Next time I make the two hour trip down there I'll be sure to go much earlier, that way I can make sure I'm not missing any of the locations due to poor visibility. I thought it was weird how in the story he said there was a field before the actual structure, and all there was here was a yard. Perhaps the place on the side of the road with the stairs and gate was it and it was torn down or it could've possibly just had been too dark for me to see far enough.

[Scott]

Good work on that! You should think about opening up your own web page of Southern Indiana Investigations. And somebody should get to work on putting maps at all the sites, heh.
Yeah! I got those directions off of that site and I couldn't find the site again. He wrote the directions but there was no map so I had to estimate from his descriptions.

[Stormblast]

My friend and I have actually thought about putting together our own site like that of the investigations we've done, but it might have to wait until a couple months into college to figure out how we're going to juggle our schedules around with work and still have our free time.

As I look at that location with the concrete barrier and gate on the road through Google Maps, it looks as if something used to be there. I can see the foundations or possibly remains of the outer walls of a building, but I can't be for certain.



Here's what I believe to be the correct location of the house where we saw the little girl.



And here's the distance between the two locations.

[Scott]

Just so that I am clear...that (where you saw the girl in the window)is NOT the schoolhouse, right? The schoolhouse is further east on Henderson Road, isn't it?

[Stormblast]

No I don't think the house where I saw the girl is the schoolhouse. I'm suspecting that the structure approx a half mile East before down the road, with the gate and steps, is probably it, or at least used to be it. I would assume that it's correct, because the map I picked up does label it The Old Dam Operations House. I went the entire length of Old Henderson Rd, and there are quite a few creepy buildings and areas that I couldn't really see that well in the dark, so I really can't give a definite answer. I'm planning on returning soon to do a day investigation, and I'll post my findings here.