Top 10 Haunted Colleges in the Southwest

If you’re at the stage of your life where you’re thinking to the immediate future about where to go to college (I’m not speaking to those of you who just graduated in May or June who should already have your plans laid out), here are ten schools for your consideration listed here due to their haunting factor.

10. Utah State University – Logan, UT
9. Oklahoma State University – Stillwater, OK
8. Johnson & Wales University – Denver, CO
7. Texas A&M University – College Station, TX
6. University of Arizona – Tucson, AZ
5. New Mexico State University – Las Cruces, NM
4. University of Colorado, Denver
3. University of La Verne – La Verne, CA
2. University of Texas at Austin
1. University of Nevada – Reno, NV

This link directs you to short blurbs about how each school is haunted: full story

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More ghost towns

Of course not every ghost town really looks like a ghost town. There are a few – like Bodie, CA – where buildings exist in a state of “arrested decay” and others, like Virginia City, NV where people still live in the towns even though they’re designated as ghost towns.

I hit another jackpot on Yahoo where they have a list of nine ghost towns in the US that typically date to the 19th century. The link at the end will be where you can see photos and read information about the history of these towns. Also, if you enjoy ghost towns as much as I do, a great resource for ghost town exploration is ghostowns.com. It is a very well organised site and will tell you how to get there – if you can drive up by car, if you have to rent a 4×4 or if you have to abandon motorized vehicles of all kinds and simply hike. The ones in Colorado and parts of Nevada and California are where you’ll typically find those.

These are the sites listed on the Yahoo article:

• Rhyolite, NV
• Bodie, CA
• St Elmo and Tincup, CO
• Calico, CA
• Ashcroft, CO
• Grafton, UT
• Gleeson, AZ
• Kennecott, AK
• Fairbank, AZ

Full story

Screams Unheard

There is no comparison between a ghost story that is meant to thrill and a true monster.  Those monsters don’t live under the bed or in the closet; they aren’t waiting to make you scream in a darkened movie theater.  The real monsters may include the mild mannered, unassuming man driving in the car next to yours.  They may include the quiet neighbor that smiles and waves to you as you simultaneously pick up the morning paper.  You may never suspect who they are–a fact they are very aware of and play to their advantage.  This was certainly the case with Gary Ridgway, who outwardly appeared as harmless as they come.  It was a deceptive facade for a depraved, cold blooded killer.  Although originally convicted of 48 murders in 2003, with an additional charge of murder added in 2011, his death rate was likely much higher.  He has confessed to more murders since his conviction and eluded to others, putting the number closer to 71.  Who really knows the number of women that lost their lives to this pathetic yet ruthless excuse for a human being, for even Ridgway has claimed to have ‘lost count’.

Hellhounds on the Devil’s Highway

“Get your kicks on Route 66”, the old song by Nat King Cole says– but Route 66 wasn’t always Route 66. Before it was designated Route 66, it was called Route 60, and there was a lot of controversy over the U.S. 60 designation. According to the Federal Highway Administration:

[There were several] complaints from Kentucky and other States in the East that “60” should have been assigned to a transcontinental route through their States, the number “60” became the subject of the most protracted and bitter controversy involving the numbering plan. The compromise solution was to assign “60” to a route from Virginia Beach, Virginia, to Springfield, Missouri, and “66” to the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route. AASHO sent ballots to the States involved seeking approval. By August 7, 1926, enough States had approved the change for AASHO to consider the matter closed.

Terrain near the old Route 666 looks a lot like this photo of US 89 near Page, Arizona-- some 80 miles west of US 491.

With this change, the former branches of U.S. 60 had to be renumbered, and the sixth branch of the new route became U.S. 666 in August 1926, beginning a long saga of strange happenings along this stretch of road. Through the numbering system of the Federal Highway Administration became known as “The Devil’s Highway”. Since that time, the stretch of highway between Monticello, Utah and Gallup, New Mexico has been rampant with stories of sign theft, hellhounds, phantom hitchhikers, and ghostly cars running people off the road.