All they wanted to do was get rid of the garbage. So it's hard to follow him. What was about to happen given the chance to live life in their shoes for a day or two? I doubt it I cannot see any other way for us. The town had taken over in strip mine in early one thousand, nine hundred and sixty two and repurposed it as a landfill, which was admittedly, a good thing. The number of unofficial landfills that popped up around the town and they were hoping this would clean things up a bit. But this new official landfill set right up against a cemetery and people were starting to complain about the mess, so the town come.

met and plan the clean up on May twenty, seventh of nineteen sixty two someone working for the town struck a match and set the whole pile of trash on fire, but there was a problem: a big lurking, underground problem that landfill you see who's directly on top of an abandoned coal, mine and coal, as we all know, has a tendency to burn. When you add fire. they tried. Putting the fire out, of course, betray digging it out pouring in wet sand and cutting off the oxygen supply the fire needed to burn, but nothing worked, the fire just kept burning, and as it did, it started to transform the town above it. No over the decades since the fire was set, the population,

roughly one thousand townsfolk has all but vanished the toxic sulphurous fumes and carbon monoxide have driven people from their homes. The weakened spiderweb of mines beneath their streets have caused singles some deeper than in eighteen. Ninety, two, the governor of Pennsylvania, exercised emanate domain and condemn the town. Only seven people still live there, refusing to leave their homes, but once they pass away, the government will take full possession of Central Asia. Meanwhile, fifty five years later, fire still burns, we ten think of cities as permanent locations that our hometown will always be there when we find the time to visit family or that population numbers will always claim higher as the years go by. Maybe it's a point of pride or a sign of human error most of us believe that these centres of human civilization represent our indelible in more.

Mark on the pages of history, but life doesn't always play along with our assumptions is always an exception to the rule. Sure most towns and cities do grow and swell as time goes by, but sometimes they dont, sometimes they burn or crumble or get washed away, is frightening as it is to consider some towns just fail a tire pierced by a nail. They slowly leak everything that ever made them a community until finally, there's nothing left nothing that is except ghosts. I'm Erin Maggie this is more.

If you get in the car and head north of Boston following the coastline you'll venture wind, your way up to a small peninsula known as cape and it's a deeply historical area with settlers dating back to the sixteen twenties toward northern side of the Tipp of that peninsula is the town of rock port and on this, inside is Gloucester in sixteen ninety, though, a group of settlers headed toward the area right between them in the middle of that stretch of land and set up a sort of common settlements, they called it now get ready, because this was incredibly inventive of them. The common settlement yeah, I know just role with it- The name was accurate, though, since the entire five mile area was meant to serve the whole community, you can harvest timber from the trees there and Grazer Livestock in the fields

being further inland. It was also safe from the pirates that played the coast, so eventually people began to build homes there. By the MID seventeen hundreds there were roughly hundred families living in the common settlement, but not all utopian dreams can last forever. After the American Revolution was fought and won. Pirate ships were a lot less common around cap n, so people started to move back to the coastline where life was easier and as they did, the town was just sort of left behind discarded, like old toys in the back yard, some people even left their dogs, which ended up becoming feral roaming. The area long enough for locals to start referring to the settlement as Dogtown. There were stories to tales of witches that stayed behind to torment the people.

them. One legend says that a which name Tammy younger so feared by people passing through that they would pay her a toll when they did so just to keep her happy. In the end, though, even the witches moved away, today downtown is a wilderness tall trees. Oddly shaped boulders in whispers of witchcraft and shadows sprinkle throughout at all or large holes in the ground. The sellers of those long gone buildings that settlers once called home. So if you ever visit watch your step, you never know what you might stumble into The north western corner of Connecticut is another heavily wooded region of New England, and it always has been settlers arrived in the MID seventeen hundreds. They tried their best to tame it, a community. There was eventually called Cornwall, but, according to the legend some time in the seventeen fifties, members of one

taking family started to move to the southern edges of town away from everyone else. Gideon Dudley was the first followed a short time later by two of his brothers. Then Dear cousin me Martin Dudley, arrived other families followed them, of course, but the I'm never grew very large by the eighteen fifties. There were just over twenty families living there, and thanks to the founding Dudley Brothers, Cornwall would always be known by another name, Dudley Tone, then, as is sometimes the case, life changed the MID west. and up and people moved in that direction for a fresh start and a new life. The iron industry that it thrive for decades began to dwindle. Finally, there was little reason to stick around that all three of the four original deadliest moved away and they fared much better in their new home

but maybe I'm the one who remain behind didn't share in that good fortune, which has led some to believe in a curse hovers over the region. Some say the curse is connected to a deadly ancestor who was executed for treason back in England and of his curse, followed the deadly family to Connecticut it's mostly just a lot of local legend. But what we do know is that some pretty odd things have happened in Dudley Town, so the curse story sure looks like great hook to hang your code on. If you know what I mean, because APL Dudley ended up losing his entire fortune shortly before he passed away. in one thousand, seven hundred and ninety nine, the town of Cornwall, actually stepped in and took possession of his property to cover his debts, but rather than disappearing accursed. If it really exists, it all seems, just stayed with the land as a whole. String of unusual events seem to point out. First, it was a neighbour of abs, who was king,

while helping another neighbour build a barn. The neighbour, survived was a man named William Tanner, and he managed to escape the curse and lift the ripe old age of one hundred and four. in his long years in deadly town, claim to have seen unusual things. Things like unnatural creatures that approach his house from the woods at night or shadows that move through the trees One final tail from doubly town tells us that Sarah Faye, the wife of a revolution reward general standing on her front porch sometime in one thousand, eight hundred and four, when a freak storm blew in then as she was looking up at the clouds, a bolt of lightning flash down and struck her killing her instantly. Her husband Herman was said to have gone insane after that, Like Dogtown, the deadly town of today is little more than dense, woods and the occasional stone lined foundation whole. Then, while the people who live there

our long gone, each location still plays host to its own mix of folklore and rumour, because even when you take the people out of a town, something always stay behind and sure New England is really old. Relatively speaking, time has a way of helping everything fade away. People events even places, so maybe it's not a big surprise. The dog town and deadly town no longer exist. That said, a community doesn't have to be ancient for that to happen and that there are some places that are far younger than any New England town and yet there passed is full of violence and tragedy. Death. In fact, if the story her true. There are abandoned tones out west that are in hand

did by much more than just story, because sometimes the past refuses to die when gold was discovered in the American West back in the early eighteen hundreds, it acted like a beacon, a tracking thoust, of Adventurous Americans to its light, they flocked to California, Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico, and many other dusty rocky harsh environments and in eighteen, sixty two The gold was found at Grasshopper Creek. They rush to Bannock Montana, being the eighteen sixties sum of banks

settlers included civil war deserters people who preferred getting rich over fighting for their country. They were joined by common thugs, con artists and career minors, who had failed so many times before that they were beyond desperate putting them all together in one place could never end. Well. There is constant danger from the outside to remember. Once gold was collected, it needed to be transported away too, really be valuable, which of course created ample job opportunities for anyone interested in the age, old profession of highway robbery and when it came stealing gold from travellers in eighteen sixty Montana. No one did it better than the innocence

in a sense were a legendary gang outlaws preying on the people who had finally struck it rich once gold was packaged up and transported out of town. It was this collection of thieves and gunman who chased them down and relieved them of their burden, so to speak, they didn't often, and if anyone resisted they did it with force. The documents we have today show evidence of at least eight murders committed by the innocence of local legend. What's that number much higher closer to one hundred the trouble was local share of Henry Plumber. Didn't seem interested in helping to track the innocents down so as humans have always been so very good. At doing the people of bannock took justice into their own hands. And they caught them, it turns out the leader of the innocents was none other sheriff Henry Plumber himself, which explained a lot because the crimes went by

highway robbery and deep into the realm of murder. He and twenty two other members of his gang, rounded up and executed in nearby Virginia City. Over five thousand people turned out to watch the hangings. hanging by the way that took place on gallows built years before on the orders of one man sheriff plumber, Bannock is empty now appears exactly as you would imagine, in old West Ghost town, to look many the original buildings are still there, but they're. Just empty shells now void of human life, Some say the town is far from empty, though that's something still walks: the dusty streets and empty buildings. The ghost of sheriff plumber. The town a body has its own dark history situated roughly hundred miles to the east to Sacramento near the Nevada border. This abandoned

California, mining town has everything you might expect from glory days and tragic collapse to other less explainable qualities in it all began in eighteen fit nine that was the year, that for men, discovered goal just north of minor lake after one of the men are forty for you. old former tin merchant from Poughkeepsie New York Name W S body died in a blizzard, the others decided to name the can't. After him, it's been body ever since give or take a change and. Failing that is a mining town quickly grew up around the camp and by the eighteen seventies it was booming million of dollars of gold were being shipped out of the town every year and people were flocking to that golden glow. But all good things come to an end. Even if that ending is slow and drawn out. The blows that killed body came waves, a fire eighteen. Ninety two, the closing,

the railroad and nineteen seventeen another fire. Fifteen years later, the great depression, each event acted like. nail slowly, locking the lid of the coffin down on a town that had once been so alive and vibrant still. Some things refuse to completely go into the grave. Multiple spirits had been seen by visitors to the old town over the decades, since it was abandoned. Somehow Seeing what they described as a ghostly chinese woman, peering out from the window of one of the buildings, while other buildings have played host to the sounds of laughing children, the story is that attempt to look in these experiences. Perry names and legends with the sites and sounds are a bit of a mixed bag, but all of them speak to a powerful idea: human, settlements, even after all, the inhabitants of moved away, seem to have a way of living on

something else in body: that's darker than the ghosts of the past. If the stories are true, the town is also home to a curse. I've heard it rationalized a number of ways. Some people think that the remains of body are so precious to its ghostly inhabitants, but the actively hate thieves, others think it has roots in the town, survivalist spirit the people of Bodie suffered through starvation, Austin even tragedy, all to earn a living there, and that means everything in town was precious invaluable. As a result, there are multiple stories of people who have visited the town and left with souvenirs only to have life. apart a short time later, one man stole a glass bottle, triggering a series of accidents in his face

we that left them injured and afraid another took a rusty nail home and experience so much hardship that he actually put it in an envelope and mailed it back. But something's can't be mailed back occasionally the thing that poison the spirit of a town can be blamed on random tragedy or events outside their control. Sometimes, town seems to voluntarily invite the shadows in once they arrive, though they tend to put down roots. Folks have lived in the area for decades. The started

Lynn before the ink on the Louisiana purchase was dry and just kept moving west right here, though, in the flat green land about three miles north of Spring River, they encountered a community of native Americans from the Osage tribe and had to fight the claimed the land. Don't get me wrong. This was Osage land land. They been therefore. These two centuries after being forced out of their original home territory farther EAST, but the white men was good at pushing and they pushed the Osage right out of town and since the eighth twenties community, there had grown like a weed in the late eighteen. Fifty two of the more prominent men in town D. S home in p a love work together and registered their town with a state of Missouri just to make an official state welcome them in life continued on. In the same way it always had, except you no more efficiently, I suppose not

leave the freshly minted town known as a villa needed a post office, so Mr Holm and set it up and gave the job of postmaster to himself, and it was through that poster Is that so much of the news from the outside world flowed in within a year, though, that news started to take on a darker flavour. War was coming. They say a war between the states over the issue of slavery, which was a bit trick for the people of a villa, because, while slavery was legal in Missouri, most of the people in town didn't care for it. In fact, when it came time to pick I'd they threw their had him with the union without ever thinking twice about it. The local physician, doktor stemmons even freed his slaves, literally putting his money where his mouth was when confederate troops in the area car window. It though they rode to a villa,

on March eighth of eighteen, sixty two a rating party fell on Doc, stemmons home looting. What they wanted before burning at all to the ground, then they stood the good doctor up and put a bullet in head, sending a message to any one else in town who might be thinking of following in his footsteps. Plan backfired, a villa rose up created their own local militia and began to patrol the area. Looking for confederates, who might be doing the same thing and other towns they were vicious to taking, groups of rebels much larger than their own, sometimes defeating a hundred or more in a single battle. Then something happened legend says that I'm one of their patrols, they discovered the corpse of a man in a confederate uniform. No one. New who had killed the man, but, judging by the state of the composition, he'd been killed days before a bullet hole in the man's rotting skull, certainly told them how

though, as a way of warning, the other confederates to stay away. One of the soldiers brought the dead man's head back to a villa there, found a tree in the orchard. Alongside the road near the Dunlap Farm hung the skull from a branch and at skull hung there for so long that people began to call its home the death tree, The civil war eventually ended and peace returned to a villa, but folks left s skull and Three as a reminder of how strong and determined they all were the next few decades tested that strength, though first a new railroad line was install between Springfield and Carthage, but its skipped a villa entirely. Business dried out for many of the shops Town and by the nineteen forties, the younger generation was moving out in search of work. Elsewhere is not much left of villa today.

you original building, still standing or just empty shells waiting for their turn to fall over, but there are about one hundred people still living there still holding on to their community and still doing their best to get by they're, not alone. According to the stories, a villa is home to something else, something far less human and you might expect multiple. Mrs have reported seeing a shadow like figure that moves through town, sometimes even passing through locked doors. It said that the figure is more Isabel out of the corner of your eye and straight on, but it's been seen at all hours of the day in multiple locations around town. The darkest tales, though, are about a more visible entity they call him rotten. Johnny read a nickname that hints at both the stand she seems to give off as well as his origin story. Johnny read, you see was a common term for confederate soldiers.

according to the stories. This figure is the very same soldier who lost his head all those years before witnesses grab him as a walking rotting, corpse dressed in military cloak Some say he wears a long leather coat and carries a rusty, Winchester Rifle, while others claim that he's been, Seen crawling around on the ground, as if he's looking for something important and while the shadow Figures never seem to bother anyone. Johnny Reb is another story entirely. Not only does he noticed, people in town he's been said to approach them. Whether the stories are true or not goes. Tones certainly represent something powerful in the world, the folk lore. They seem to be two very different things all at the same time, em forgotten places that are also somehow overflowing with tales and activity. We can debate the existence of ghosts and curses all we want, but there is no denying the power story.

Still, if you ever find yourself in a villa at night and you catch the scent of rotten flesh on wind, do yourself a favor run. Ghost towns are oddly attractive to us there something magnetic about being able to step into a place where an entire town once thrived and be the only person there to walk through buildings that were once homes orb streets that use the hum with life for the bridge. MR moments. It can seem like you're, the only person in the world. On the other hand, ghost We can also be a little horrifying. Think of it. This way archaeologist, who found graffiti that dates back thousands of years in places like the

Here here of the great pyramid and the walls upon pay, it's part of who we are, we have a deep. To leave our mark on the world. Legendary martial arts pioneer Bruce Lee once said that the key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering and that's why goes towns can be of frightening because they stand is proof that no, not everything we build will stand the test of time but sure some things still remain. People who visit body get to walk through buildings that still feel like time capsule. The general store still has proper On the shelf in homes still have furniture in them, as I mentioned before, some of those old items have been stolen by tourists only to be sent back when life starts feeling a little well cursed.

At the park rangers their embody say they receive package's all the time in over at the museum gift shop. They keep a photo album full of the letters that came with those returned objects, letters that are full of guilt and regret and hope hope that maybe by returning these items it might end the curse. But it's not always that easy, even though the Post office is still open in a villa Missouri, there's nothing to send back for that town. It's more a matter of finding things: that's because the tale of Rotten, Johnny Red

leads to a particular solution. You see all those sightings of a ghostly rebel crawling around on the ground were a hint he's looking for his head, they say, but if the town wants to be rid of him for good, they have their work cut out for them. According to locals, they just need to find that old tree dig up the skull beneath it and then set the whole thing on fire and really how hard can that be within again? That's the trouble. The people of a villa have apparently forgotten which tree it is. Goes towns have a way of hinting that there's something more just beneath the surface. The whether it's a spear

infested town or tales of cursed families, he's abandoned places seem to be far from empty and if you stick around after the break I have a story about one, that's almost two frightening to believe. The abandoned New England settlement, known as Dogtown, is home today to allow more than just a collection of sunken foundations and overgrown clearings. There are also the boulders boulders with messages carved on them. There, the work, Roger Babylon, a successful business man from the late nineteenth century and founder of babes in college during the great depression absent wanted to help his community find work. So he use some of his fortune to pay out of work, stone cutters to carve inspirational messages into

thirty six boulders throughout Dogtown, their covered in cliched Sainz such as never try, never win or stay out of debt. Was one of those noble ideas with corny execution, but the guy was giving back to his community soap. Let's cut him some slack, but the bab some boulders aren't the only carved stones and Dogtown He. Ninety six, Charles Man, wrote a book about the area called in the heart of cape, an or the story of Dogtown, and in it he spends a good amount. Hi. My dinner find the former owners of many of the now gone homes in the settlement, and then he pauses and mentioned something different to stones in a nearby field. The first has a simple message on it, marked in two words: first Attack the one beside it gives us more of the story. James Mary, it said, died September, ten, eighteen. Ninety two.

the author then goes on to answer the obvious question of what happened to this James Mary person is in March for Land Ski tells us that James Mary was a well travelled sailor who lived in Dogtown at the end of the eighteen hundreds on a journey to Spain. He had encountered bull fighting and when he returned, bragged about having become a matador himself at the age of sixty Mary acquired, a bull and trained with it regularly to put on a show for the locals? That's when something went wrong. The first attack was in eighteen, ninety one, the bull, grazed him and left him body bloody and his pride bruised many months later in September of eighteen. Ninety two, the bull finish the job, but here's where things get weird after wonder four days where James Mary had gone his friends, but looking for him and found him in that field near his bull he'd been horribly gourd, but his

body also showed signs of a different kind of animal attack. Large clause, a torn out his throat without left the locals with new mystery. What kind of animal is tall enough to slash at the neck of a man who, according to Charles Man, stood nearly seven feet tall The answer might be hiding in a modern story in nineteen eighty four there multiple sightings west of Gloucester Area of what can only be described as a large beast one man saw the creature near one beach in Ipswich, while multiple people in Raleigh sought the following week. One man found the body of a deer that had been viciously torn apart. Her managed to get a good look at the beast. It was according to one local report, a large grey dog, but more monstrous and frightening. The teens saw the creature running, pass them along the road

The teens saw the creature running pass them along the road, but when they reported to the police they added one very intriguing detail. This creature. Whatever it might have been. I've been running down a road that ended in one very special place. Dogtown, sometimes folklore gives us the answers we have been searching for what other times it just brings up more questions when it comes to downtown. The biggest question is possibly also the most disturbing. What exactly is the dog? The settlement is known for This episode of law was written and produced by me. Erin Mahnke, with research, help from our set Crockett and Karl Nellis, music by Chad, Lawson.

is my friendly reminder that law is a lot more than just a biweekly podcast there, a an Look series from Penguin Random House A tell us Extra show available on Amazon, prime and membership site with extra episodes in so much more and you can learn about everything over in one place. The world of lore dotcom. Slash now it also follow the show on social media were over there on twitter, Facebook and Instagram, just search for lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. If you do say hi, I like it when people say hi and as always, thanks for listening.