Last week was Halloween, a fitting occasion to spotlight the spookiness and weirdness one can find throughout this great country. But I missed this list CNN compiled of the 50 creepiest places in America. Typically a dubious source at best (to say nothing of when it is being misled by consulting firms about the popularity of its offerings), CNN did a good job with this inventory.
As a connoisseur of the strange, I am embarrassed to admit that I have been to only one of the places on CNN’s list: Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel. A beautiful building, opened in 1893, it is supposedly haunted by the ghost of Charles Pfister, its namesake. If you don’t believe me, would you believe professional baseball players? Visiting teams are regular guests of the hotel; some of their players have strange reports. “Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals claimed that his belongings and furniture moved while he was sleeping, while Brandon Phillips of the Boston Red Sox said his radio repeatedly turned on for no reason.”
My favorite instance of creepiness on this list that I didn’t already know about is in neighboring Michigan. Legend tells of the “Drowning Pool,” a body of water on Mackinac Island where a witch hunt was conducted in the 18th and early 19th centuries. “Seven women who were accused of being witches were thrown into the water with rocks tied to their feet; if they sank, they were deemed innocent.” The spirits of drowned “witches” are said to haunt this pool.
Ohio, my home state, gets the Ohio State Reformatory, made famous by being the filming site for The Shawshank Redemption. It’s a fine choice, and the property itself has taken advantage of its reputation with ghost and Halloween tours. But Ohio is full of glorious weirdness, enough for its own lists or even books. Athens, home of Ohio University, is reputed to be one of the most haunted locations on earth.
By the somewhat arbitrary metric of coolest-sounding name, however, this list’s winner has to be neighboring West Virginia’s Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Opened in 1864 and meant for 250 patients, it housed 2,400 at its peak population less than a century later, and in inhumane conditions. Their worldly discontent is said to cling bitterly to the locale.
These are just some of the highlights from CNN’s list. All are testaments to the fascinating and often bizarre history and cultural folkways our amazing nation has accumulated in its relatively short life.