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It's getting close to Halloween, so in the spirit of the season I've got an urbex ghost story for you.
About a month ago I was driving around rural eastern Kansas to check a few spots off my list. The last spot I hit that day before sundown was a small historic grain mill from the late nineteenth century. I ended up parking right across the street from it, because the town is already half abandoned so I didn't think that there anyone around to notice. After several minutes of circling the mill looking for a way in I found a climbable route with enough handholds to scale the rough stone wall into a window. The window itself was above a steep embankment down to the river, and was both out of sight of the front door and semi-shrouded in foliage.
After about five minutes inside I heard what sounded like heavy bootsteps thumping their way up to the front door- which I only a few feet away from on the other side. The bootsteps stopped and I could hear the creaking of the wooden porch as whoever wore the boots milled around outside (no pun intended) without opening the door. There was nowhere to really hide inside the mill, so I crept back out the window and dropped down into the bushes. The whole process took less than a minute.
I peered around the corner, but the front porch and the entire street surrounding it were empty- not a single person to be seen, despite hearing someone at the door only a minute earlier. But less than 30 seconds after I exited the mill the sheriff came flying across the river bridge and pulled to a stop right behind my car. He didn't see me in the bushes so I was able to drop down the embankment to the river, crawl under the bridge, pop up from the other side on the same riverbank, and pretend I was doing landscape photography when he saw me return to my car. I don't know if he believed me but he was content to let me leave town as long as he didn't actually catch me trespassing.
If it weren't for those disembodied boots the sheriff would have caught me inside the mill for sure. The early warning those bootsteps gave me was just enough time to exit the mill and give myself enough plausible deniability to talk my way out of a ticket. I'm not saying I truly believe that I was saved from arrest by a benevolent miller's ghost (I still think there has to be a scientific explanation), but the spooky interpretation of the story is certainly more fun.
And here's the history for anyone interested:
The original mill was a wooden logging mill constructed in the 1867, but after its first year of operation it was converted into a flour mill. The wooden building was replaced in 1875 by the stone structure that still stands today, and a granary made from wood and tin was attached to the front of the original stone building in 1903. The mill ground flour until 1941 when it was converted to grinding cattle feed and it remained in use until its abandonment sometime in the 1960s.
The mill sat derelict for several decades but was eventually added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. There appears to be some kind of restoration effort underway with the end vision of converting the ruins into a museum and cultural heritage site. As part of these efforts, the granary was torn down in 2015 in an effort to restore the mill to its original 1875 look. Despite ongoing web activity, little to no physical progress appears to have been made since then.
[last edit 10/24/2023 8:43 PM by Aran - edited 1 times]
"Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there.
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I don't know if ghosts really exist or not but I can say that I have heard disembodied "heavy" boot stomps without a soul around except for myself and friends. It really spooked the hell out of us and left us with more questions than answers. **shrugs**
Beautiful old mill though !
"if you are not selfish enough to make yourself happy, you have nothing of value to offer the world." | |
I guess all I have is a BA, but I use the term ACAB all the time.
The only time I like the cops is that one day of year when there's the Seoul Queer Parade, and tens of thousands of riot police are deployed to protect us from the violent, frothing-at-the-mouth Christians.
[last edit 11/28/2023 9:18 AM by Avatar-X - edited 1 times]
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