Print Page - Local Legends Of Your Area

Not referring to ghost legends or superstitions, rather the people in your local community who are famous for doing certain things or nothing at all. For example, where I live there is this guy who walks everywhere for miles and miles and miles in any weather. His appearance/manner is very distinct; straggly white bear, bald head, and he always seems to be talking to himself while fidgeting. Someone actually made a FB page in his honor that I doubt he knows about. It’s been kind of a challenge on the page to get a picture with him which some actually have.

Back in my hometown we had an old lady that traveled everywhere in wind/sleet/rain on an old school three wheeled bicycle. She was a tough old bird and didn’t really seem to care if she was holding up traffic for miles. Matter of fact she’d often be seen at intersections yelling at cars who wouldn’t let her go.

We have a homeless guy in the area who is a Viet Nam vet. You see him around town at least every few days. He wears his hair down to his waist and it's knotted and snarled. People call him Shaggy Man. A few times the locals have tried to help him out by getting him a place to live and in one case a guy offered him a job but he wasn't interested. He never causes trouble, he just seems to like to roam around and talk to people.

There's also this guy who is rumored to be in the Mafia. On a few occassions I've seen a semi-truck stop in front of his house and the driver drops a pallet of cargo off in the guy's driveway. Once it was a pallet of sneakers. A few days later sneakers of the same brand were for sale in his brother's resale shop. He seems to not only know eveyone but to know about everyone, he never gets hassled by police or inspectors of any kind and no one really knows what he does for a living. His only daughter is prety cute and she was interested in my brother for awhile but he was actually afraid to date her for fear that he might get pulled into the Family.

Not too much to report in Phoenix, Arizona. Everyone stays indoors six months out of the year in their A/C.

However, I'm a baseball fan and support my local Diamondbacks (even though they've sucked for three years now). There is a lady who attends every game known as The Flag Lady. She is sometimes shown on the local game broadcasts, but she's there in the upper decks every game, with an assortment of large flags that she has made herself, dancing and waving them about. She's in her early 60's, and is a dental assistant by day. Here's a article about her:

http://www.phoenixmag.com/lifestyle/200804/from-the-mouth-of----the-d-backs-flag-lady/ (http://www.phoenixmag.com/lifestyle/200804/from-the-mouth-of----the-d-backs-flag-lady/)

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I think many people think all homeless are belligerent and unintelligent which isn't always true. I recall my neighbor telling me about this homeless fellow who would wander around the area he worked. In his workplace they had a potted plant that was dying and no one could figure it out. This guy happened to be walking by and walked in. After assuring them not to judge a book by it's cover, the fellow gave them the correct instructions and the plant revived. I guess in a later conversation the guy revealed to him he used to be a high end employee of some firm. He said he just got sick of the stress one day and decided to live a simpler life.

We had quite a few in our town. Funny enough they all sort of disappeared in the early 90s.

There was a young well dressed guy, known as "The Walker" because he would walk all day and seemingly all night, the streets of our town. He did that for a couple of years and people thought he was nuts. According to legend he had a high IQ and would carry a normal conversation when talked too. He was the only child of divorced parents and lived with his mother in another town until she died. His father remarried and got divorced again and also died. Apparently dad left behind a huge fortune nobody knew excisted, including three houses with one in Spain.
Some say "The Walker" temporarily snapped after the reading of the will and was trying to cope with being rich, thus the reason he walked endlessly through town.
One day he disappeared. This was 20 years ago and nobody knows his whereabouts. He is probably living the high life in Spain for all I know.

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Some unfortunate woman of easy virtue slightly mentally disabled. She was known as "Boobs-Emma" because of her big assets. Emma was also an alcoholic and had sex with anybody as long as she got some beer. A few friends of mine had sex with her, even in our public park with people standing around watching.
Emma also got pregnant quite often with authorities taking away her kids on a regular basis. You would think they'd suggest her to get 'fixed' but nope.
Other than that she was harmless but not exactly blessed with beauty. Once the 90s came around Emma disappeared though.

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Some 30-something dude who loved taking pictures of accidents, car crashes and whatever. You could see him riding his bike all day listening to the police radio with a camera hanging around his neck. Occasionally he would show pictures of dead car crash victims and trying to sell them. The guy wasn't very much liked and ironically got hit and killed by a car on his way to another accident.

Quote from: The DarkSider on November 03, 2010, 08:39:08 AM

Back in my hometown we had an old lady that traveled everywhere in wind/sleet/rain on an old school three wheeled bicycle.

We had an old lady here who rode around on a three wheeled bicycle, piled high with all her possessions. She was en ex-nun who got kicked out of the convent because she was getting the bishop's empty whiskey bottles out of the dumpster and making a big stink about it or something. I don't know too many specifics, this all happened when I was in elementary school. You'd always see her around town with her grievances written on the signs that were displayed all over her three wheeler. I guess she died a few years ago, there was an article about her in the newspaper.

We have a neighbour who travels around - slowly - on one of those three-wheeler bikes. Known only by his first name to all. He's handicapped and puts in a phenomenal number of miles per day. He regularly holds up traffic, but he's a local feature so he gets a lot of tolerance.

When we moved here, the place across the road was known to all as "The Barn People Place" - it is a landmark of sorts and yes: they lived in the barn. A big, old, full-of-holes and sided with many materials and colours hip-roofed barn. With holes in the roof. Nobody seemed to know them: they were just "The Barn People". Could have made for a good horror movie premise...made me a tad nervous when me first lived here. I was told by someone who had hired them to do some work that the couple were highly-skilled cabinet-makers who did beautiful kitchen renovations. So of course one imagines the interior of the barn to be gorgeous...but the outside was (and is) delapitated. Someone bought the property recently and built a real house on it. The barn is still there, though. It's still "The Barn People Place".

We have a local woman who is known as "The Pony Lady" - at her instigation (NO DarkSider, she is not that kind of pony person! She buys and sells ponies.) Even non-horsey people know and refer to her by that name.

There is also "The Mountain Man" - who dresses, talks and acts the part (cammo hunting gear, squint, beard, hat, drawl, chews tobacco - or something, slouches and shuffles and talks about eating squirrel and 'possum...) and has a sort of critter-catching business (a la Billy the Exterminator) among other ventures.

I am sure there are many more I do not know about.

There’s a guy in our neighborhood that walks dogs. He walks all over and very loudly sings and talks to himself, his dogs, strangers, anyone, all the time. I think he may be a little mentally handicapped, or perhaps has some form of a developmental disorder, but I’m not a doctor, so maybe he’s just eccentric. Either way, he’s certainly making himself a local legend having either befriended, embarrassed, or p**sed off everyone in the neighborhood at least once. He’s shouted random observations like “Nice shoe!” to me, or hailed me like an old buddy while we’re driving past him, and a couple times he just yelled at me, but he’s so loud and enthusiastic and sudden about it that it always startles me. I don’t know his story or his name, I’m not sure if he gets paid to walk dogs, or if they’re his own, but he almost always has a different dog with him. He seems pretty harmless, but I’ve heard people shouting back at him fighting a few times.

There used to be a guy in the neighborhood known as the “Coat Guy” because he wore a really big long puffy coat with the hood up all year round, even on the hottest days of summer. I haven’t seen him in about 8 years, and he just kind of dwindled away.. when I was young we’d see him almost every day and then it was just a few times a month, until it was just a couple times a year and then I never saw him again. I never really saw his face, but in the few partial shadowy glimpses I got, he looked pretty normal aside from some scraggily facial hair, I would say he was in his 20s or 30s in the 90s, so he couldn’t be that old. Maybe he moved to Alaska and grew an afro mullet.. I don’t know..

Newt - ! I want to move into your neighborhood! It sounds like the funnest most magical place in the world!

In the neighborhood in which I grew up, there was a house that was a local legend, not a person. Walking home from school, all of us kids used to have various theories about a house that was surrounded almost entirely by trees and bushes and vines, which was unusual for Southern California. It was such that you couldn't really make out the features or style of the house, it was that concealed. Nobody ever saw any activity inside the house, although it was clear that somebody lived there. So, naturally, being kids, there were fantastic stories about who lived there and what went on, although most of it was probably bulls**t, such is the way with local legends. As I got a little older and more distanced from the wonder that invades a child's mind up to the age of about 12, I heard someone say it was just some old lady who was a bit of a hermit who lived there, as was probably the case, but I always preferred to hold on to the mystery.

Years later, when visiting the old neighborhood, I walked by the mystery house, only to see the landscape had been almost completely stripped and you could see that it was just your standard tract house built in the 60's and completely unremarkable. A part of me died that day.

Ooh houses! There’s a house in the neighborhood that isn’t a local legend yet, but I could see it becoming one in the next few years. Apparently, someone started building a giant castle-like home on a corner overlooking the expressway. It’s really a very unfortunate project because it seems the person had grand ideas, but didn’t have enough money to complete it about halfway through construction. I believe a realty company just hastily finished it well enough to try to sell it, so there’s two whole sides of the house without windows, while the other two sides are covered with very nice windows (the sides facing the highway, of course), and beautiful ornate front doors about 10 feet from the ground with no stairs going to them. My husband also pointed out that there’s a driveway and garage angled out into the street, but it’s a one-way street, so it would be easy to get out, but kind of awkward to drive into. It’s selling for about $2mil, but I don’t know anyone that would want to pay that much for an unfinished castle, overlooking a dirty highway, with no yard (unless there’s potential for a rooftop garden), no stairs, and an awkward driveway. It’s probably going to be vacant and overgrown with weeds for years and sprout many rumors of being haunted or cursed among the kids around here.. I think I may even start some of them!

Happy, the bum. (No, not me.) This old dude, I believe is dead now, but he was apparently this guy with a boatload of money and a family that had a business. He gave it up and lived on the streets. Nice guy for a homeless dude, never bothered anybody. Would do odd jobs for money/food. Would go to the homeless shelter and work for the food they gave him.

There was a house down the street from me, never occupied. Supposedly some lady who lived there was a witch and had apparently committed a bunch of heinous crimes (witchcraft, murder, etc.). The police arrested her for some kinda crime, and she put a hex on it. Still unoccupied and it's 20 years later.

Anne's Rock- a park where I grew up had a trail/woodsy area that led from the main park where all the little league baseball/football games happened and alongside it was the creek on the left and the right had a bunch of mountains/huge rocks (mainly cause the town Swim Club was there and it was hard to climb them.) Well, story goes (I heard 2 versions but both had roughly the same story), that back in the late 1790's, early 1800's, as the town was being formed, there was a big Native American population. There was a 12/13 year old girl, a Native American princess (or some such, was in line to be a leader of sorts) was playing in the park. Some English Settlers were doing something in the park where she was, she overheard what was going on (it was illegal, I think a drug deal or some sort of land sale that was illegal), they saw her, chased her, she fell off the cliff (as there was no Swim Club at the time), hit her head on the ground. The Settlers then rolled her off the trail into the creek to dispose of her. It's been said that anyone who goes back there routinely smells some kinda odd smells, gets all kinds of cuts, gets hit repeatedly and feels a slight choking sensation. I went back there, got some cuts. But mainly cause 1.) I was drunk, and 2.) there's a lot of bushes with thorns. I dunno.

In our town we have 'Geoffrey The Car'. this guy thinks he is a car. runs along the road with his hands on an imaginary steering wheel. I nearly saw him get knocked over once. He says he has disco equipment in the back of his 'van'

another guy who walks through town in a suit with an old ghetto blaster, listening to elvis songs.

in Burnham (nearest town to us) there is a guy who wears a sheriff's badge and thinks he is 'the sheriff of burnham' (weird, but even weirder because we don't even have 'sheriffs' over here)

and also in burnham one guy who used to walk around with a spade everywhere claiming to be a gardener. he got arrested because he strarted threatening everyone with his spade.

Geoffrey the car is the best though. We saw him stop some people once and ask them if they could help him reverse his van round a corner, he dissapeared round the corner and then came jogging out backwards! that was years ago, but he's still about

EDIT - aha, I've found a reference to this guy on the net:

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Many years ago our lodger got on the bus to come home, and Disco Geoff/Jeff pulled in front of the bus in his imaginary lorry.No amount of persuation followed by curses from the bus driver would induce him to move,so the driver was forced to nudge Geoff out of the way with the bus!

http://www.knowhere.co.uk/Bridgwater/Somerset/South-West-England/info/localcharacters

Quote from: DCA on November 03, 2010, 11:37:24 PM

In our town we have 'Geoffrey The Car'.

Reminds me of another local legend. Some old woman they called "Blue car." Story goes in the early 70s they constructed a much needed bridge over the river so people wouldn't have to detour to reach town. There was a big opening ceremony and the first car to cross the bridge was a blue VW beetle. Apparently the old lady attending the bridge opening festivities got all excited shouting "oooh blue car!" which didn't went by unnoticed and caused many laughs amongst bystanders. I assume people were easy to amuse back then.
Anyhow, kids started teasing the old lady after the incident, yelling "blue car!" at her which got her always furious. She would run after you and hit you in the back with her wooden cane.

Here's another legend, more of an urban legend though. When we first moved to town kids would say "the firedevil will get you." The "Firedevil" was our full fledged campfire tale. Our "Pumpkinhead" or "Candyman" if you will. Story goes an abused boy set his house on fire killing both his parents. While the fire department were cleaning up the boy found the corpse of his dead father in the rubble and cut off one of his hands and kept it as a souvenir tied to his belt.
Apparently the boy was somehow able to dodge authorities and lived as a hermit of some sorts. During the summer he would sneak into people's garden and steal vegetables and fruit. He was living in an old shack in the woods during the winter. We went searching for the shack as kids many times but never found anything.
Over the years the "Firedevil" story faded into oblivion but some folks here still remember.

Two other Pretoria legends:

There was / is a chap in Pretoria who claimed to have the world's highest IQ ~ not tested, I believe ~ and proclaimed that he caused Hendrik Verwoerd's assassination through his 'power of prayer' because the Prime Minister refused to let this chap change his first name to Super Genius. This guy would rattle around town in a blue Datsun with a triple number plate: the legal one on the bumper itself and then two others, above and below it stating: THE PRO CHRIST and THE WORLD RULER. I know about those license plates firsthand as the SOB nearly rode me over in the street once when I was waiting to cross the street. :buggedout:

The other local legend was a street preacher dressed all in black (black hat as well) who would stand on the street corner, being silent some of the time but suddenly bursting out with the words POWERRRRRRRRR IN JESUS which would give you quite a scare if you weren't expecting it. I spoke to him once and he told me that he saw a angel standing with his one foot on the roof of the ABSA building and the other on the roof of the Reserve Bank building: Pretoria's two highest buildings.

Quote from: HappyGilmore on November 03, 2010, 11:00:36 PM

There was a house down the street from me, never occupied. Supposedly some lady who lived there was a witch and had apparently committed a bunch of heinous crimes (witchcraft, murder, etc.).

In Gwelo, Rhodesia (the town I grew up in: now Gweru, Zimbabwe) there was also a house like that which people only ever spoke about in whispers and no, it wasn't my family home. :wink: The house wasn't far from mine and there were also rumours of witchcraft and other bad things going on there as some of the windows were boarded up. The house was eventually sold, fixed up and the people that bought it seemed to be happy there, the house's bad reputation notwithstanding. :smile:

I know the original intent was not supernatural, but here goes.

Southern California, where I grew up, there is a very large funerial industry with some gigantic cemetaries, such as Forest Lawn and Rose Hills. Rose Hills, which is one of the largest cemetaries in the world by size, is right in Whittier, California where I grew up. There is an area of Rose Hills that is known locally as “gravity hill.” If you look up “rose hills gravity hill” in google there are a few articles. It is nothing but an optical illusion, but that doesn’t stop people from applying supernatural significance to the phenomenon.

There is a section of road going through the cemetary, near some rose gardens, where the layout of the land and graves around it gives a very distinct illusion that you are going in the opposite angle upward or downward than you actually are. It’s really quite striking. If you park your car at what appears very clearly to be the bottom of the hill and put the car in neutral, you appear to be rolling uphill. This works for anything with wheels. The proof of this being an optical illusion is simple, as I have done it, you simply place a bubble level on the road and you can see the reality, but your eyes and mind cannot escape the illusion, it is that pronounced. The first time I ever experienced it I was in high school. We were driving around, and someone said “let’s go to gravity hill.” When the guy driving put the car at the bottom of the “hill” facing upward, and put the car in neutral, I couldn’t believe it. I insisted he had put the car in drive and was idling forward, but upon inspection it was definitely in neutral. Very disorienting to experience it.
The local legend has grown to the point that the security staff are well aware of it, and often have to drive off visitors who stop in that area, as they are clearly not there to visit a dead relative.

hi,
I have recently given up on my martial arts training,(i,m getting way too old) anyway one of my pupils parents(her mother) was the bane of all my instructors.This well educated woman would jump and scream in their faces and she would constantly complain to me.During one particular competition she ran onto the mat and grabbed her daughters competitor and was thus banned from further competitions,she never forgave me for not sticking up for her and every day for about three months she stood outside my bungalow with a huge banner proclaiming me to be a traitor,
I also know of this gentleman who lives close by who is known as Custer, he is always dressed in old western gear and claims to have rid America of the Indians.

Quote from: Trevor on November 04, 2010, 06:19:42 AM

Quote from: HappyGilmore on November 03, 2010, 11:00:36 PM

There was a house down the street from me, never occupied. Supposedly some lady who lived there was a witch and had apparently committed a bunch of heinous crimes (witchcraft, murder, etc.).

I used to go down to this house down the street from me. The witch's house. Never occupied but there would be a cat there sometimes. I moved out of the neighborhood last summer, and a family had finally bought it, some 20 years after it went on the market. From what my friend told me, they moved out THIS summer. So they had it a year.

Why they moved out, I dunno. I never met them. But supposedly the house was haunted what with all the murders. :buggedout:

I can't believe I never thought about this.

Sandwiched between Whitter, California where I grew up, and another suburb of Los Angeles called Hacienda Heights, is single road that runs through an area of local infamy called Turnbull Canyon. Anyone who lives in either of those two cities have at some point driven the dangerous hairpin turns, and also have heard at least one of the many legends that surround this very strange desolate place in the midst of the densely populated L.A. basin. I myself grew up hearing tales of satanic cults that practiced human sacrifice in the hills of Turnbull Canyon, to a hanging tree that was cut down, to brutal murders and bodies being dumped off, to a serial killer who actually lived in hills. There was even a legend that an insane asylum once existed.

If you go on Google and type in "turnbull canyon" you will see a number of auto populated searches come up, and lots of articles, and even some youtube movies by amateur documentarians who have visited various spots in the canyon trying to investigate various legends.

In truth, Turnbull Canyon is creepy as hell, but I'm sure 99% of the legends are complete bulls**t. Yet, somehow, although I've hiked a good portion of the canyon, I've always made sure I was out of there by nightfall. Some things, no matter how unbased in reality they may be, never leave you.

I did some research online and came up with some youtube videos of those who have taken their camera to an area known to locals as The Gates of Hell. Certainly an ominous title, it is, quite simply, and old wrought iron gate whose age is unknown, but is closed off and made inacessible by a fence with lots of barbed wire, and even surveillance cameras behind the fence. Now, this has always bugged me. One video shows a group that managed to get into the area behind the gates by climbing down a steep cliff, only to reveal there is nothing there but brush. Then why the security measures? Why the cameras? Very strange. The first rational thing that came to mind is that perhaps it was to keep people out because it is dangerous there, but having hiked though much of the canyon in my life, it seems hardly likely that it's any more dangerous than the rest of the treacherous canyon is. It seems nobody online has ever been able to explain who owns the area and why it is inaccessible. Look up "turnbull canyon gates of hell" and you'll see the videos.

The only thing I was able to see for certain that is a legitimate news story about the areas is definately very gruesome. A young woman was apparently killed and her body dragged through the canyon behind a car, and it is an unsolved murder. Nobody knows if the body was dragged while the young woman was still alive or not, but that's pretty gruesome.

If I had the time on my hands I would love to do a proper documentary on Turnbull Canyon. I have this idea that it would be a good subject to approach as a debunking project, but who knows what interesting stuff you might come across if you dig deep enough. I have no doubt some strange things have happened in this secluded area that seems to have easy access via hiking trails and plenty of trailheads. There are areas far more secluded than the canyons on the other side of Hollywood where more people own homes. Man, now I really wish I had the time and resources to do a documentary.

What an amazing thread! There are some terrific stories here.

It seems almost every town, big or small, has had its collection of local characters and legends.

One that immediately comes to mind about the small town where I grew up is another old witch house story. The creepy old house was roughly across the street from our house (we lived in the rural 'suburbs' of our small town) and was in a small wooded area in the middle of a huge cow pasture. To add atmosphere there were several old 'Indian graves' around the house.

Even though it was obviously deserted, the story went it was actually inhabited by a crazy old hag who years ago had murdered her husband with an axe. Naturally, she slept with his leg bone.

My friends and I had many heroic adventures in the area (including many almost successful bigfoot tracking expeditions) but we were NEVER brave enough to get very close to the witch house.

Im the local legend. And I aint tootin my own horn-it sucks being the village weirdo. People know me-I have no clue who they are. I guess Im the eccentic guy with long hair who doesnt drive a car,buys booze at 7 in the mornig-does tattos for free,and doesnt do drugs. (The "doesnt do drugs" comment may sound strange-but when you live in a very low income area like SW Michigan-its an exception to the rule. Ive seen 3 people that I grew up with die in the last month-2 blew themseves up with a home made meth lab-one had a heart attack from meth) I know lotsa folks-but I dont "hang out." I live like a hermit. Every one is very nice to me. But being my brother in law murdered a man with a 12 gauge shotgun they think I might do something crazy like that too.I dunno why. Ive lived in this podunk town on and off since 1969. But they look at me like Im some kinda kook.
My Aunt Jerry (RIP) usta drive a moped evrywher-she was a deaf mute. Her husband-my Uncle Joe Bonarski-(yeh,a polack) got his liscence takin' away back in the 70's-when Drinking and driving was a misdonemer! He had a thing called the Lawton Zoo. He had peacoks and a monkey and farm critters-kids usta go over and check them out. The school even had field trips over at his place! But his alchoholism got the better of him-the monkey died cuz he forgot about him-he froze to death. So did his donkey. Me and my brother Richie had to dig a hole in frozen dirt to bury it. He payed us 2 dollars and gave us a bottle of homemade wine!I was 16. My brother was 11. Crazy old basterd.Every one knew Little Joe. He was short too. Bout 5' 2". Guess crazy short basterds run in the family.

In Oxford, NJ (where my mom used to live) there's Shippen Manor, a place that was recently featured on one of the Ghost Hunter shows, or some other paranormal show. It's rumored to be loaded with ghosts, as befitting it's place in colonial, pre-American history (remember that NJ was one of the original American colonies.)

Oxford also has the Oxford Furnace, adjacent to the Oxford Colonial Methodist Church. The furnace made ammo and other supplies for just about every period in colonial NJ history, right up to WW1. It was the site of several skirmishes between British and French troops, but remained in the hands of the British. The height of it's production was during The Civil War.

Washington, 9about 3 miles away) NJ has the "Hook Man." As the story goes, he lost his hand due to an accident on the railroad track, sometime in the mid-to-late 1800's. He wanders the tracks holding a lantern in his remaining hand, looking for the hand.

Occasionally, he'll stop people along the tracks at night, and ask if they've seen his hand, and then he'll chat with the person for awhile, and ask them to explain all the stuff he sees (cars, trucks and modern technology.) He'll then tip his hat, excuse himself, and be on his way. This, as it was told to me.

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Other Topics => Off Topic Discussion => Topic started by: Mr. DS on November 03, 2010, 08:39:08 AM