#Lake Shawnee Amusement Park

[myhauntedsalem]

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park Mercer County, West Virginia

In the late 1700s there was a bloody altercation between a white settler named Mitchell Clay and the local tribe of Shawnee Indians. This resulted in the tragic death of 3 of the Clay children and a number of Shawnee warriors.

Some say that these deaths have left a curse on the land. This may well be the case because in the 1920s a local businessman bought the land and built the Lake Shawnee Amusement Park.

Over the next couple of years several people died in accidents at the park and it ended up closing down in 1966.

The abandoned remains of the park are now considered to be one of the most haunted locations in West Virginia.

There are regular paranormal tours of the property and many people have reported seeing apparitions of a man and a little girl dressed in pink.

[sabbystarlight]

Y'all, if you ever find yourselves in southern WV and get the chance, do yourself a favor and go check out Lake Shawnee Amusement Park. It's absolutely beautiful during the day and once it gets dark it comes alive. Trust me, it'll make a believer out of you.

[redneckrebuttal]

Blood & Black Lace Episode 9 - Lake Shawnee Amusement Park

#CatchUpTuesday #BloodandBlackLace Welcome to the greatest show on Earth!!! Heading to Lake Shawnee Amusement Park... With @reallinzigray & @AmandaMOfficial the rides will kill & the land is soaked in Blood... #PodernFamily #podcast #listening #Lover

Welcome to the greatest show on Earth! Tonight on episode 9 we’re headed to Lake Shawnee Amusement Park, where the rides will kill you and the land the park sits on is soaked in blood….

  https://soundcloud.com/blood-black-lace/blood-black-lace-episode-9-lake-shawnee-amusement-park

[travelsinstaffordshire]

Lake Shawnee | Abandoned Theme Park | West Virginia | USA | HD

[equinoxparanormal]

Lake Shawnee: America’s Most Haunted Amusement Park This abandoned West Virginia amusement park has a bloody history.

It has been decades since the Lake Shawnee Amusement Park buzzed with the laughter of children.

But according to local legend, the park is still a playground for ghosts.

The southern West Virginia park was abandoned in 1966, after the accidental deaths of two of its young patrons. But it seems Lake Shawnee’s haunted history reaches much farther back.

Mercer County was home to a Native American tribe until 1783, when a European family’s attempt to settle the land sparked a violent turf war. The patriarch of the family was a farmer named Mitchell Clay, according to the Wyoming County Report. While he was out hunting, a band of Native Americans reportedly killed his youngest son, Bartley Clay. A daughter, Tabitha, was knifed to death in the struggle. Eldest son Ezekial was kidnapped and burned at the stake. Mitchell Clay enlisted the help of other white settlers to seek vengeance for his family. After burying his children, he murdered several of the Native Americans.

Centuries later, in the 1920s, a businessman named Conley T. Snidow purchased the site of the Clay farm and developed it into an amusement park. He built a swing set, a ferris wheel, and opened up the pond for swimming.

But death still hung over that cursed parcel of land.

A little girl in a pink ruffled dress met her end after climbing into the circling swing set. She was killed after a truck backed into the path of the swing. Another little one, this time a boy, drowned in the amusement park’s swimming pond.

According to Visit West Virginia, the park’s rides were responsible for a total of six deaths.

The park eventually shut down, but its structures were left to rot and rust.

The park’s new owner, Gaylord White, says he can hear the wooden swings creak, though it may not be the wind that pushes them.

“Sometimes the seat will start to move underneath your hand until you feel cold air blowing through the seat,” Gaylord White II told the Travel Channel. “And when you get to the middle you feel something warm. And we believe that’s her spirit.”

The younger White said he’s even seen the little girl, with her dress covered in blood.

“She looked at me and as long as she looked at me, I couldn’t move,” he said.

Paranormal investigators now frequent the site. It has also been featured on the Discovery Channel’s “GhostLab” and the Travel Channel’s “The Most Terrifying Places in America.”

Lake Shawnee has now opened up for daring visitors who want to see the place for themselves. Flashlights are mandatory, though you may not like what you see.

[Carol Kuruvilla, New York Daily News]

[morbidology]

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park is quite possibly one of the most unfortunate and tragic amusement parks in the entire world. Now abandoned, it is located in Mercer County, West Virginia. Many years before Lake Shawnee Amusement Park was built, the land was the home to a Native American tribe until 1783, when the Clay family attempted to steal the land. Three Clay children, Bartley, Tabitha, and Ezekial, were killed by the Native American tribe, with one being burnt at the stake. To retaliate, the patriarch of the family, Mitchell Clay, murdered several of the Native Americans. Years later, during the 1920′s Conley T. Snidow purchased the land and Lake Shawnee Amusement Park was born. Now that’s not the end of tragedy for this spot of land. A total of six people were reported to have died in freak accidents at the park. One little girl was hit by a truck as she swung on the circle swing photographed above and a little boy drowned in the swimming pool. Following these accidents, the park closed for good and was left to rot and rust. However, the park doesn’t appear to be completely empty.. The owner has reported witnessing a ghostly little girl covered in blood, swinging on the abandoned circle swing; he also said that’s it’s not uncommon to hear and see the swings moving on their own.

[bubbleb34r]

[myhauntedsalem]

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park Rock, WV

This abandoned amusement park was said to have been built on an ancient American Indian burial ground in the 1920s. it was also the site of the massacre of the Clay family children. A few deaths took place at the amusement park while it was open, and it eventually shut down in 1966. Then in 1985, the park reopened after Gaylord White bought the land and returned the park to its glory days. It only stayed open for a year, and the paranormal activity on the grounds was quite apparent. Witnesses reported seeing a young girl who died on the swing ride, her ghost would wander around in a ruffled pink dress, covered in blood. The sounds of Native American chants have also been heard echoing through the trees.

[babywinterlove]

America's Creepiest Abandoned Amusement Park is Open for One Month Only!

by Tatiana Danger

03 August, 2015

West Virginia’s abandoned Lake Shawnee Amusement Park shut down back in 1966 and has laid in ruins ever since. Many believe Lake Shawnee to be horribly cursed. The park was built upon the site of a desecrated Native American burial ground, and was the location of a brutal massacre of settlers. And every October, it's opened for tours.

An archaeological dig has revealed a Native American burial ground containing the bodies of 13 people, mostly children. In the 18th century, the area’s first European settlers arrived, the Clay family. The settlers were attacked by Native Americans, two of their children died in the attack, and a third was later burnt at the stake. In the 1920s the land was purchased and transformed into an amusement park. Over the years, several tragic accidents happened at the park, including the death of a little girl on the mechanical swings and a drowning death in Lake Shawnee. The park was then closed. Some paranormal investigators have visited the site and claim to hear children laughing and the swings moving all by themselves. Because surely wind couldn’t make swings move like that. 

Fancy a trip to a cursed abandoned amusement park? Well, you’re in luck. This October there will be creepy spooky tours beginning at dusk from 8PM to 1AM, every Friday and Saturday. Cameras and audio recorders are allowed, and flashlights are a must. It costs $15 if you book your tickets online or $20 if you book there.

The attraction with a mixture of historical events and frightening haunted park experiences. May not be suitable for children under 12 Parental Discretion is advised.

[neilcar]

[madworldnews]

NOW OPEN: Do You Dare To Set Foot In America’s Creepiest Abandoned Amusement Park?

NOW OPEN: Do You Dare To Set Foot In America’s Creepiest Abandoned Amusement Park?

There is an amusement park deep within Princeton, West Virginia, thought to be cursed. Said to be too dangerous, it was abandoned where it has been sitting ever since. Shockingly, the park is set to open every weekend this month leaving thrill seekers asking only one question – do you dare?

According to historical accounts, Lake Shawnee Amusement Parkwas actually built on an old Native American…

[talesofdrunkennessandcruelty]

America's Creepiest

Abandoned Amusement

Park is Open for One

Month Only!

[thecrimsonarcher]

I have decided that if my ghost hunter friend ever invites me to go to Lake Shawnee Amusement Park next year or in the near future, I'm going to take that chance in a heartbeat. I had to turn down the offer due to our family vacation this year. I won't turn it down this time!

[myhauntedsalem]

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park

Amusement parks are supposed to be places for fun, where the whole family can enjoy themselves, and while that may certainly be true at the best of times, it certainly seems that these places sure can be some of the creepiest around in death. There just seems to be a certain, palpable sense of dread inspired by abandoned amusement parks. Maybe its the juxtaposition between the once bright smiling faces of the past now faded and contrasting with the feral, overgrown tangles of brush and hulks of long dead, forgotten machinery presently scattered about that strikes a chord of unease in us. Maybe it is our natural aversion to places that have been forsaken and left to rot. Or perhaps it is something more; something even spookier. One abandoned amusement park in West Virginia, in the United States, has such a brutal past and history of misfortune and death that these macabre elements fuse together with its rundown, ragged appearance to make it truly a disturbing place to be. Variously called the “scariest amusement park in the world” and one of America’s most haunted places, the Shawnee Lake amusement park gives us plenty of reasons to continue to fear these ruined sites of long gone happiness.

Located in in Mercer County, West Virginia, United States, just a few miles from Princeton, the area where the abandoned Lake Shawnee amusement park sits has a dark and menacing history. The land was long used by the native Shawnee tribe of the region as a burial ground, which archeologists digging here have estimated holds the bodies of perhaps 3,000 people, but this would not be the extent of the death associated with the place. In 1775, a family of white settlers known as the Clays, consisting of the father Mitchell Clay, his wife Phoebe Belcher Clay, and their three children, Bartley, Tabitha, and Ezekial, moved into the remote area and set up a homestead there right over the burial ground. This perhaps unsurprisingly did not sit well with the local Shawnee people, as it was sacred land, and the Clays, who were among the first white people the tribe had ever come across, had just come in and set up shop right over the buried corpses of their kin.

The tribe, angered by the desecration of their land, repeatedly warned the family to leave, but the Clays defiantly chose to ignore them. In August of 1783, a band of Native tribesmen took matters into their own hands and descended onto the Clay homestead while the father was out hunting. The Natives proceeded to outright slaughter the youngest son, Bartley, as he worked out in the fields and then scalp the corpse. Tabitha was next, as the Shawnee warriors tracked her down and brutally stabbed her to death. The oldest son, Ezekial, was not killed outright, but rather kidnapped, dragged away from his home, and later burned at the stake. When the patriarch of the family returned home to find his children dead, his vengeance was swift, and he gathered together a posse of other settlers to go off to hunt down and murder several of the Shawnee tribes people in bloody retribution. The Clay massacre would hang over the area like an evil cloud for years after that, with most settlers refusing to go anywhere near it.

[thestr4ngeworld]

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park.

Location - Princeton, West Virginia, USA.

Status - Defunct, abandoned, partially standing.

Reason for closure - Deaths at the park

Dates Active - 1926 - 1966

Lake Shawnee Amusement park was opened by C.T. Snidow in 1926. He bought the empty land and opened up the park. Lake Shawnee Amusement Park featured a swimming pool, dance hall, carnival rides, water rides, a racetrack, concession stands and even cabins for guests to stay in.

The park truly was a popular summertime retreat for thousands of families, until closing in 1966 after two young children died on the park.

The first death (which has even been confirmed by the owners) was that of a little boy, who mysteriously drowned in the swimming pool. The boy's mother had dropped her son off at the park one morning, only to return that afternoon to find her child was nowhere to be seen. After searching the entire grounds, she found her son's lifeless body floating in the pool.

The second death occurred in the early 1950's, when a little girl climbed aboard the spinning swingset (which still stands, in the above photo). Whilst the swing set was in operation, a truck delivering soda to a refreshment stand accidentally backed up into the path of the swings. The young girl was killed when she was struck by the truck.

These series of events lead to the parks closure in 1966. The now owner of Lake Shawnee Amusement Park, Gaylord White, bought the park in 1985 with plans to subdivide the land and sell residential lots. However, after White began finding Native American burial sites and numerous artifacts, he put the idea of selling the property for homes to be built on the graves to rest. Instead he reopened the amusement park that year, but it only lasted three years. The skeleton of the Ferris Wheel, several abandoned rides and the children’s swings are still on the park grounds.

According to archaeologists, the area around Lake Shawnee was home to at least two separate Native American settlements before European settlers arrived.  The Marshall and Concord Colleges joint dig in 1988 found that the Indian settlements were circular in arrangement and the Indians lived there for long periods of time. They think the settlement was abandoned several hundred years before the first white settlers arrived. They found 13 skeletons, mostly of young children. There may be as many as 3000 bodies of Native Americans buried on the property.

To make things even scarier, the abandoned amusement park is extremely haunted. Most individuals have experienced orbs in photographs, disembodied voices, Native American chanting, unexplained sounds, and the long forgotten carnival rides moving on their own. It is also said the girl who was killed on the swing set ride haunts this very park. Others who have visited the location say that the Ferris wheel is the home of a full apparition of a male subject in the car in the nine o'clock position. The swings still on the property feature cold spots just above the deteriorated wooden seats. The seats are also said to move on their own, which has been observed from across the park by visitors.

The amusement park still partially stands today, with only a few of the long forgotten rides remaining.