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we investigate the paranormal |
| Satan's Hollow |
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Satan's Hollow
Satan's Hollow in Blue Ash (a Cincinnati suburb) is the name of an underground "altar
room," located in the sewer system, where a group of Satan worshippers supposedly raised demons and even dealt with the Dark
One himself. One of his minions, a demon in the form of a "shadow man," haunts the underground tunnels where they performed
their ceremonies. The screams of a woman are often heard echoing through the passages.
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| The Ridges Asylum Cemetary |
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Depending on who you ask, there are either two or three asylum cemeteries at the Ridges.
The lesser-known cemetery apparently stands "on a hill parallel to Dairy Lane." But the most famous one is at the rear corner
of the asylum grounds. This is the only part of the Ridges still owned by the state Department of Mental Health.
Very few of the gravestones feature names. A couple have been replaced with better stones
engraved with names and dates, but that only happens when someone's descendants bear the expense and have a stone put in.
If you died on the state they gave you a small white stone with your patient number on it and nothing else. Hospital records
tell who each number belonged to, which is why several of the unmarked stones are accompanied by metal veterans' plaques.
There are a lot of Civil War veterans in the Ridges graveyard; when it was built there was an entire country full of shellshocked
veterans. Due to missing records, the identities of the male patients with numbers 1 through 63 are lost to history. Male
#64 and Female #1 were both interred in 1880.
In total there were roughly two thousand people interred in the Athens State Hospital burial
grounds before 1972, when the burials ended with Female #847 and Male #1117. Since men and women were numbered separately,
there are two gravestones for each number through 847. Apparently Ohio University also buried the cadavers used in its medical
classes here, but whether or not they were assigned numbers I don't know. This is similar to the Columbus Mental Hospital cemeteries with their "SPECIMENS" stones.
The Ridges asylum cemetery is also definitely reputed to be haunted. Most of the stories
center around the weird circle of graves which takes up one corner of an otherwise military-style tombstone layout. Maybe
there was a center stone at one time, but now it's just a barely-distinguishable ring of graves. The legends say that witches
use this as a circle of power (or something like that) to hold seances in. It turns out that the circle was probably created
by pranksters years ago--at least that's OU's official opinion. There doesn't seem to be another feasable explanation.
Then there are the typical cemetery ghosts. There's even a really weird section with only
a handful of graves on the other side of a little creek. There's a wooden bridge and, on the other side, three or four graves
in the woods.
The Ridges' main asylum building is inaccessible now, but the cemetery is always there. It's
a good and scary place to check out late at night. And if you feel adventurous you can always head right up the hill and across
the driveway and take a look at the only abandoned building left on the property--the Tuberculosis Ward.
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| Cincinnati Subway |
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Most major cities have subway systems--New York, LA, Chicago, Washington.
In the early years of the twentieth century, when the river trade was flourishing and it ranked in the top ten largest cities
in the nation, Cincinnati decided to build one for itself. The major impetus was the draining of the Miami and Erie Canal,
along which the subway would be built.
The idea really originated in 1884, when the Cincinnati Graphic printed an illustration
showing trains chugging along underground, in an old canal bed covered with a new street. After their remarkably brief golden
era, canals quickly became even more of a nuisance than they had been when they were bringing in trade. Many were partially
drained; whatever water there was ended up breeding mosquitoes and disease. The muddy canal bottoms were used as refuse dumps.
Since the Miami & Erie cut right through the heart of the city, it was a particular eyesore in Cincinnati.
The plan was made in 1912 to built a sixteen-mile rapid transit rail system in a loop around
the city, with a branch going underground and heading downtown. It surfaced at Brighton and Saint Bernard and ran aboveground
along the Ohio River.
The projected route of the rail system was as follows:
The original plans for the transit loop began at 4th and Walnut Street near Fountain Square. Now, the
old subway system was going to run north along Walnut Street to the canal, and then when it hit the canal, it was going to
follow under Central Parkway up through the Mohawk and Brighton areas to Ludlow Avenue. The subway was constructed only to
a point just north of the Western Hills Viaduct, with a short tunnel under Hopple Street that was never completed. The line
would have then run above ground in the canal along a section which is now Interstate 75, to Saint Bernard. The loop would
then tunnel under the business section of Saint Bernard and eastward in the open on private right-of-ways to a short tunnel
under Montgomery Road in Norwood. It then would have run along a high retaining wall to another subway tunnel under Harris
Avenue. Then it goes above ground again through the Norwood Waterworks Park, southward along Beech Street by the United States
Playing Card Company to Duck Creek Road. The rest of the loop was never constructed but it would have run along a stretch
of Interstate 71 to Madison Road. A tunnel would run under the Owl's Nest Park, through the hills to Columbia Parkway and
along the Parkway on an elevated railway into the downtown area back to Fountain Square. (Taken from the City of Cincinnati Government Website)
The cost, originally estimated at $12 million, was cut to $6 million and then voted on in 1916. More
than 80% of Cincinnatians voted for the new railway, but work wasn't begun until after World War One--January 28, 1920. Ground
was first broken on Walnut Street.
Despite several delays, the two-mile underground portion of the subway was completed by 1923.
Inflation had destroyed the projected budget and caused the rail loop to be reduced in size.
In 1926 Mayor Murray Seasongood took control of the transit project from the county and gave
it to the city, then estimated another $10 million needed to be spent to see it through to completion. Central Parkway, which
was built atop the underground tunnels, opened in 1928, and that seemed to be all the transit Cincinnati residents wanted
at the time, especially with such a steep pricetag for finishing the project.
Of course in 1929 any consideration of paying the millions evaporated when the stock market
crashed and the country plunged into the dark depths of the Great Depression. Proposals came and went in the 30s, but none
were implemented. One idea was to run trolleys through the tunnels, but the trolley cars were too long for the subway's bends.
Another proposal, made by City Manager C.O. Sherrill in 1939, was to use them for automobile traffic, but the cost of the
plan was too high.
A 1948 study finally mothballed the Cincinnati Subway for good, though efforts to do something
with the tunnels have been constantly ongoing for more than half a century. Ideas have included a bomb shelter, a shopping
and nightlife district, a massive wine cellar, and more rapid transit. The latest proposal is for another subway.
The subway project was scrapped without a single train ever having run. The debt incurred
by the project wasn't fully paid until 1966, at a cost of $13 million--in addition to the lives of several workers. According
to someone who e-mailed me, the subway is said to be haunted by the ghosts of the dead workmen. The only thing remotely resembling
the paranormal which occurred while we were travelling through the subway happened when we were about a mile in; in the middle
of a sentence we both heard a "shhh" sound, like someone shushing us. Creepy, but then again we heard lots of noises coming
from traffic overhead.
Over the years Cincinnati grew in different ways, but not nearly as quickly as the subway's
conceivers had hoped. Today it's only the third-largest city in the state. I-75 was built, destroying a large segment of the
underground passage. But one of the Queen City's best-kept secrets is the fact that sections of the original subway still
remain--including all four of the stations put in during initial construction.
In late March 2000 Rookie and I parked on Hopple Street in Cincinnati and walked down beside
I-75, where the subway segments are. First we explored a smaller one, which ended rather abruptly under the Hopple Street/Martin
Luther King Drive intersection. Getting into this was the hardest infiltrating either of us had done. Cincinnati Public Works
apparently doesn't like people in their abandoned subways, because they had welded metal grates and bars across the only entrance.
We managed to bend a grate up and squeeze through, and wouldn't have made it with another inch on our waists.
Next we found the major subway. The entrance to this one had a big metal covering on it,
but there was a significant gap at the top which was easy to climb through.
Entrance, from inside
Two tunnels run side-by-side
at this point, separated by a wall with regular openings. Wooden tracks, bolted down, run the whole way (with a few gaps);
they raise on one side corresponding to curves in the tunnel, so the trains could bank.
Inside the subway
The east tunnel is empty except for
some major flooding halfway through, while the west tunnel is occupied by a huge water main. I guess the city didn't want
to entirely waste the space. There are also some newer chrome pipes running along the top of the left tunnel.
   
The subway contains at least three platforms, built along with the tunnel. Click below to
explore the different stations.
Station One
Station Two
Station Three
Great stuff. Many Cincinnatians I've spoken to have heard about the subway as a historical
anecdote, but not many are aware that it's largely intact, right beneath their feet.
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| Salem Road Cemetary |
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Salem Road Cemetery
On Mt. Washington's Salem Road there is an old Civil War cemetery for black people
which is said to be the site of many ghostly occurrences.
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| Woodland Cemetary |
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Woodland Cemetery
Woodland Cemetery in Ironton is said to be haunted by the ghost of a young woman whose
abusive husband killed her by throwing her down a flight of stairs. A life-sized statue of her stands above her grave, and
a handprint appears on its cheek even after the cheek has been sandblasted. The statue is supposed to be warm all the time,
even in the coldest months.
Woodlawn is also said to be home to the ghost of a Russian ballerina, who is entombed in one of the
family mausoleums. Her likeness is caved into the mausoleum. On nights with full moons, it is said, you can see her dancing
outside her final resting place.
Dr. Joseph W. Lowry also haunts Woodland, seeking vengeance for his murder and mutilation; to read
his story, click here. Dr. Lowry is often seen with his mother, who died from a broken neck when she was thrown from her carriage
by a spooked horse. They walk together toward the cemetery gates but never make it past the highway bridge.
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