How to Approach a Haunted Location

This week’s podcast episode is a little different. I don’t have a story for you. I DO have a location, rumors, and some advice about how to approach a haunted location with respect.

You can listen to the Podcast on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple, and more.

Transcript

“Have you heard of Devil’s Creek?” My cousin asked. The name itself solicits sinister imaginings of demonic activity and lures the mind through dark woods and winding holler, promising spine tingling experiences of the paranormal.

Welcome cousin to Haint n Holler podcast. I’m D, your guide through stories and superstitions of the south.
Tonight we’re doing things a little different. You see, I don’t have a story for you. What I do have is a location, rumors, and some advice for those of you who love southern haunts as much as I do and just wanna get some boots on the ground and experience a story of your own.

A small disclaimer before we continue. Here at Haint n Holler, we share information and stories about the paranormal. We do so for entertainment and educational purposes. Our goal is not to evangelize our beliefs in ghosts, cryptis, or other high strangeness nor do we pass judgement on whether or not a location contains any of these therein. Any information you obtain from this podcast, it is entirely up to you what you would like to do with it. Listener discretion is advised.

Devils Creek Road is an 8 mile stretch of road in Corbin, KY. It contained upon it a church and adjoining cemetery with the ominous name of Wolf Pit.
Corbin was established in 1895, and after some back and forth, the name Corbin was decided on after Reverend James Corbin Flynn.
L&N Railroad was what brought commerce and settlement to the area.
The volatile mix of railroad workers with those from the timber industries earned Corbin a reputation for violence in the late nineteenth century.
A notorious area of town was known as “Hell’s Half Acre”, which was on the north bank of Lynn Camp Creek in Laurel County and out of the jurisdiction of municipal authorities.
Corbin was the site of what was considered the “Terrible Calamity”, where on the Evening of October 30th, 1919, an armed mob led by L&N brakeman “Pistol Pete” Rogers terrorized the town by rounding up between 200-300 African-American men, women, and children and forcibly removed them from town on rail cars headed for Knoxville, TN and Louisville, KY.
As you can see, it has a history.

But the history of tonight’s episode doesn’t start there.
It starts with a conversation with my cousin. He knew I was investigating all stories weird in the south and boy does he have some odd ones.
The rumors and stories that came up were just wild. One group supposedly found a severed arm in a ditch and were brought in by police for questioning. Another group were harassed and chased by mountain men on horseback. My cousin himself saw a woman, taller than anyone they’d ever seen, and strange lights in the woods. Then there were the rumors of the living doing unspeakable things in the name of the devil himself.

Drawn in by these stories, I began my investigation.
What I came up with was…well…not much.
I took down my cousin’s rumors and asked him if he could get me any shred of evidence to what had occurred. I also began digging into the paranormal community.
Turns out lots of folks had heard rumors but nothing was holding up to scrutiny. Still, a few teams had the road on their list to investigate. I even found a video online of a group that headed out that way to look into the hauntings, cryptids, and strangeness.
But that was where it ended.

I did have some speculations though.
Devil’s Creek is an odd name for a road in a god-fearing country of Kentucky that sits like a buckle on the United States Bible belt. While I couldn’t figure out the name of it for this location, I did find an explanation for another Devil’s Creek in the midwest. The story was from the late 1800s, around the time when Corbin was founded.
Some men in Illinois talked to the natives out that way who explained they named the river Evil-Spirit River after it had flooded and balls of light moved over the waters in the fog. This was later explained that they were making sugar and water rose suddenly in a flood and carried their kettles of burning sugar down stream to the camp, terrifying the residents. Still the name stuck and was Anglicized to Devil’s Creek.
Whether or not this was the origins of the Kentucky road, I of course cannot claim, but it is interesting to note how history and folktales can braid together and the naming of a place can create just as much of that folklore long after its history and origins have vanished from knowing.

The rumors about Corbin’s road seem to rely heavily on the name.

In the mid 1900s Wolf Pit Church and Cemetery made their home in Devil’s Creek. According to local legend, this wasn’t your typical church. The congregation didn’t worship a God. They were Satanists.
In the 80s pentagrams and upside down crosses began appearing in the area and stories about everything from cultists to ghosts to a bird man were reported in the area.
Strange goings on were recorded in the cemetery and while there is now only a concrete slab where the church once stood, it doesn’t seem to stop the symbols of darkness and events of high strangeness from appearing.

Well, cousin, I can’t tell you one way or another if Devil’s Creek Road or the location of the former church and its still standing cemetery are haunted. In fact, I think there’s a chance that no matter where you go, you’re bound to run into something strange on this planet. As my friend Becca said, “I’ve always found it strange that we assume that spirits wander in the land of the living. We are outnumbered, lovelies. We who are living are actually wandering in the land of the dead, and they are prolific.”

What did occur to me while investigating this location, were the actions and behavior of the living.

At the time of this recording, we have just entered fall and October is just around the corner. The season of spooky dealings is at hand and folks are just itchin to get out there and touch the darkness, hoping maybe the darkness will touch them back. I’m by no means judging this desire. Hell, its what I do. However, there is a way to go about your interest and investigation of the paranormal. First and foremost, is respect.

Sadly, I don’t see a hell of a lot of respect when it comes to folks investigating Devils Creek Road.
In 2016 a lot of the rumors have drew in an irreverent group who knocked over 20-30 headstones in Wolf Pit cemetery, damaging many and requiring the families of those interned to come up with funds to have equipment brought in to set them right.
In response to the vandalism, one of those family members pointed out “part of the cemetery is very old, and some headstones date back to the 1800s, where a community once stood. He says the vandals didn’t just deface stones, they damaged pieces of history.”

Taking it back to the rumors of the 1980s, those symbols of the devil found around Wolf Pit Church were likely similar vandalism of would-be edgy teenagers and young adults who should have found better ways of spending their time in the holler.