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Coal Region Mobsters: Louis Moff
The history of the Pennsylvania Coal Region wouldn't be complete without one, or several, chapters devoted to organized crime. During the Prohibition Era, crime rings could be found in just about every...
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The Haunted Schoolhouse of Rippletown
Just west of Mountaintop, in Wright Township, lies the village of Rippletown. Rippletown is a quiet place, and has been since the 1860s when two men, Ripple and Line, built a sawmill on the south bank...
View ArticleHickory Grove Children's Cemetery: A Video Your
Deep in the wilderness of Perry County is a cemetery for children, some of whom died nearly 200 years ago. Check out the first episode of Pennsylvania Oddities TV and watch a video tour featuring the...
View ArticleThe Abandoned Path Valley Railroad Tunnel
There is something inherently spooky about tunnels. To some, a tunnel evokes the chill of the unknown, and the possibility of danger lurking in the inky blackness. To others, a tunnel may bring to...
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A Murder in Blackman Mine
In 1895, after falling in love with the wife of the owner of the Wilkes-Barre boarding house in which he was living, a 28-year-old miner named Anthony Zemartis thought he had conceived the perfect...
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Peter Hauntz: The Mysterious Puppetmaster of Pennsylvania
Peter Hauntz was the stage name of James H. Sharp, a Civil War veteran from Clinton County who rose to prominence during the latter half 19th century as a master puppeteer, ventriloquist, magician and...
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The Irey Family Curse
A decade ago, the law enforcement community of Chester County wanted to pay tribute to a sheriff who was killed on his second day on the job in 1887. They chose to memorialize the long-forgotten...
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The Lykens Triple Axe Murder of 1932
The quiet borough of Lykens in upper Dauphin County was thrust into the spotlight in 1932 when Barney Godleski, an out-of-work miner, slaughtered three of his four children in a drunken rage, in the...
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The Deadly Coal Region Electrical Storm of 1918
Most of us don't know anyone who has been personally struck by lightning, and that's because people just don't get struck much by lightning anymore. If you're like me, however, and enjoy reading old...
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Third time's a charm?
In September of 1893, a four-year-old boy from York County met his demise after drowning in a bathroom sink... after surviving a fall from a second story story window and ingesting deadly poison. The...
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The Death of the Garrett Family: Murder or Accident?
Newberry Township in York County was gripped in terror in February of 1894 when Edwin and Tillie, two young children of Eli and Jennie Garrett, died after exhibiting signs of being poisoned. When...
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A Hoodoo House in Wilkes-Barre
A century ago there stood in the heart of Wilkes-Barre, across the street from St. Mary's Church of the Immaculate Conception, a house that many people considered cursed. The two-story brick house that...
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The Bittersville Beast
In 1909, the residents of Bittersville in Lower Windsor Township, York County, were terrorized by a jackal-like monster. The above article appeared in the York Dispatch on Feb. 3, 1909.
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Centralia's Forgotten Neighbor: The Ghost Town of Logan
Undated photo of the Logan Breaker near Centralia, taken sometime between 1881 and 1896.Just about everyone in Pennsylvania knows about the ghost town of Centralia, and most folks who were born and...
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The 1895 Kreamer Sleigh Tragedy
Sleigh parties were popular forms of wintertime amusement in the Victorian Era.The village of Kreamer in Snyder County was the scene of a horrible tragedy in the early hours of January 25, 1895, when a...
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George Pletz: The First Casualty of American Aviation
Seventy-five years before the Wright Brothers flew into the history books, a pair of eccentric brothers from Dauphin County believed they had invented the world's first flying machine. And had the...
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A Murder-Suicide in Kane
When Cressie Bunting traveled to her parent's house in Kane with her seven-year-old daughter, Doris, on New Year's Day of 1923, nobody could have anticipated that McKean County would shortly become the...
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The Haunting of the Titus Homestead
The Ransom House, one of the first homes erected in Plymouth.There are many ghost stories that might leave a listener mystified, and there are some that may leave a listener amused. Others make us...
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