Donald Harvey Angel of Death Serial Killer and Toledo Prison Murder

CINCINNATI|TOLEDO • OHIO

Donald Harvey was one of the most prolific convicted serial killers in American history. Working primarily as a hospital orderly and nurse’s aide in Kentucky and Ohio, he used access to seriously ill patients to...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Edgewood Cemetery McAdams Family Graves

ASHTABULA • OHIO

In the oldest section of Edgewood Cemetery lies a row of weathered McAdams family graves connected to one of Ashtabula's darkest nineteenth-century mysteries. Between 1848 and 1851, five McAdams children and their mother Rebecca died...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Great Serpent Mound Archaeology, Myth and Mystery

PEEBLES • OHIO

Serpent Mound is a 1,348-foot-long prehistoric effigy mound in Adams County shaped like an enormous serpent with an oval feature at its head. It is one of Ohio's most recognizable ancient earthworks—and one whose date,...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Johnson’s Island Civil War Prison

MARBLEHEAD • OHIO

Johnson’s Island in Sandusky Bay was the site of a purpose-built Union prisoner-of-war depot that operated from April 1862 to September 1865 and was used primarily for captured Confederate officers. More than 9,000 prisoners passed...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Kirtland Melon Heads

KIRTLAND / CHARDON TOWNSHIP • OHIO

The Kirtland Melon Heads are one of northeast Ohio's best-known urban legends: strange, large-headed figures said to inhabit the woods around Wisner Road near Kirtland and neighboring Chardon Township. The familiar story involves children with...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Matthew Hoffman Mount Vernon Triple Murder, Kidnapping and the Leaf House

MOUNT VERNON | TOLEDO • OHIO

Matthew J. Hoffman is not a serial killer in the usual criminological sense. He is a convicted triple murderer, kidnapper and rapist whose crimes unfolded during one November 2010 attack in Knox County. Three victims...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Nain Rouge Detroit’s Red Dwarf Omen

DETROIT • MICHIGAN

The Nain Rouge—French for 'red dwarf'—is one of Detroit’s oldest and most distinctive supernatural figures. Modern retellings describe a small red-faced being who appears before disaster, political crisis or personal misfortune, often framing the creature...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Ohio Medical Body Snatching and Grave Robbing

STATEWIDE • OHIO

For much of the nineteenth century, Ohio medical training had a problem that could not be solved politely: students needed human bodies to learn anatomy, while the law supplied almost none. The result was a...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Ohio State Reformatory Helen Glattke Death and Ghost Tradition

MANSFIELD • OHIO

Helen Glattke, wife of Ohio State Reformatory superintendent Arthur Lewis Glattke, died in 1950 after suffering a gunshot wound inside the superintendent's residence. Her death was an actual tragedy, not an invented ghost-story origin. Over...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Ohio’s First Serial Killer Return Jonathan Meigs Ward

SYLVANIA • OHIO

Return Jonathan Meigs Ward is frequently called Ohio’s first serial killer, but the evidence supports the more careful description first presumed or suspected serial killer. Ward was convicted of murdering his wife, Olive Davis Ward,...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Paulding Light Ghost Lantern, Highway Mirage and Michigan’s Mystery Light

PAULDING • MICHIGAN

The Paulding Light is one of Michigan’s most famous anomalous-light traditions. Since the 1960s, observers near Paulding in the western Upper Peninsula have reported a bright light appearing in a distant valley, sometimes changing color,...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Project Blue Book At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB • OHIO

Project Blue Book was the U.S. Air Force's longest-running formal investigation of unidentified flying object reports. Headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, it grew out of earlier Air Force studies known as Project Sign and...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Screaming Mimi Bridge

LIBERTY TOWNSHIP • OHIO

The bridge on Maud Hughes Road in Butler County is better known in Ohio ghost lore as Screaming Mimi Bridge. Its legend centers on a woman whose screams are supposedly heard near the bridge after...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Siege of Fort Meigs and Dudley’s Defeat

PERRYSBURG • OHIO

Fort Meigs was built on the Maumee River in 1813 as a major American base during the War of 1812. That spring, British and Indigenous forces besieged the fort, while a disastrous American counterattack led...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Silver Bridge Collapse Ohio River, 1967

GALLIPOLIS • OHIO

At approximately 5 p.m. on December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, with the Gallipolis, Ohio, area suddenly collapsed into the Ohio River during heavy rush-hour traffic. Thirty-one vehicles fell with...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Squire’s Castle Ghost Legend

WILLOUGHBY HILLS • OHIO

Squire's Castle is a picturesque stone structure in Cleveland Metroparks' North Chagrin Reservation and the center of a persistent ghost story about Rebecca Squire, wife of Standard Oil executive Feargus B. Squire. The familiar legend...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

The Oliver House

TOLEDO • OHIO

Built in 1859, Toledo's Oliver House is a surviving pre-Civil War hotel building near the Maumee River that now houses Maumee Bay Brewing Company and related hospitality spaces. Its long history has produced an equally...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

The Ridges / Athens Lunatic Asylum

ATHENS • OHIO

The hilltop complex now called The Ridges opened in 1874 as the Athens Lunatic Asylum and later operated under several names, including Athens State Hospital. Designed according to nineteenth-century ideas about moral treatment, the institution...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →

Tinker’s Hollow Gold Ghost

BEDFORD • OHIO

Tinkers Hollow, an old settlement area in southeastern Cuyahoga County, is associated with a persistent lost-gold story and a ghost said to remain near the place where treasure was supposedly hidden. The setting has genuine...

DIG UP THIS ENTRY →