At some points the road runs alongside eerie Ghost Lake (above),
which is blanketed by wispy fog and inhabited by lush foliage and an amazing array of
wildlife
Later, due to the
towering, twisted trees that cast a gloomy shadow over much of the roadway, it became
known to the locals as "The Shades." Legend states that there were numerous
deaths and unsolved killings along this road; many people were said to have been attacked
and killed by wildcats in the region, and a series of murders plagued the area as well.
The first alleged murder on Shades of Death was the unsolved slaying of a tinker along
with his horse; their corpses were found discarded alongside the road. In the 1930's, an
elderly gentleman in a Model T Ford was brutally bludgeoned to death with a jack handle
from his own car, presumably for a few gold coins. His murderer was never caught.
It was around this
time that the local population began to refer to The Shades as "Shades of Death
Road."
In the 1940's, two
men- Leon G. Hull and William Crouse Jr.- both constructed fantastic mansions in the dark
depths of the woods close to each other, near Shades of Death. By building a dam across a
stream which adjoined their properties, the men created a massive lake, which they named
"Ghost Lake" due to the ghostly apparitions in the fog wisping over the water.
Consequently, they decided to name their property "Haunted Hollow" and the
adjacent mountain "Murderer's Mountain." O-kayyy.
Other reputed rumors
of evil included the macabre finding of a male body that was discovered under a railroad
car along the roadway, and the acts of a murderous housewife who slayed her husband, then
disposed of his head and body by burying it near their home on Shades of Death Road. MTV's
Fear even filmed an episode at a camp near Ghost Lake, located off of the road.
There are so many
legends and tales about this place... who can sort truth from fiction anymore? Whatever-
it doesn't matter. With a name like that, plus all the creepy tales and ghostly
souls that are said to wander this long, lonely and shady road, there is more than enough
to make it one Hell of a ride, day or night.
Our visitor Cheryl was kind enough to share this fascinating
story with us, "HI, thought it is interesting to read about my old homestead- my
parents bought Haunted Hollow-Ghost Lake on Shades of Death Road from Mr. Hull in the
1960's. We found it to be an intriguing place to live with all the rumors about our
surroundings, we had a blast scaring the bee-gee-bees out of the kids that would park by
the lake at night. We had the best Halloween parties on earth, my dad (prearranged of
course) would have church groups come up from the city and pretend he was a wild man
hijacking the bus and making the kids follow him all thru the mountain in the dark with a
shot gun, and along the way there would be gruesome things for the kids to see, like the
skinned cows head from Jane's Meat Market in Great Meadows. Could write a book on all the
fun we had, the land is possessed by some spirit of what source we do not know... but a
good one. We could tell when the phone was going to ring and when a car was 5 miles down
the road, why, we just knew, something just told us. I think it is interesting to see the
(after) pictures of the once beautiful property, the State acquired the property and as we
know the state, no monies for up keep, so it was destroyed by the public. The building was
torn down last summer. Memories remain of the wonderful time on Ghost Lake."
Do you have any background information or stories to tell about an interesting
road?
Want
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