Ok, so who had a haunted house in their neighborhood when they were a kid? For us, it was a haunted road located in a Chicago suburb about 15 minutes away from ours. Actually, my group of friends were from a few different area high schools, and we had all heard of Munger Road from kids at our schools. Back in the ’90’s when such haunted tales were spun that made us actually want to visit, the road was a deceptively secluded partial dirt side street that ran through a forest preserve and connected two main thoroughfares. At night, the road was dark, isolated, and spooky. There were many rumors about the incidents that took place on Munger, but here is the basic story: There was a little house right next to the railroad tracks. The ghost story said that the man who lived in the house was mowing his lawn when he was hit by a train. I can’t remember if the train supposedly derailed or if the man got too close or what happened, but his ghost was said to haunt this area, along with ghost trains.
It was a fun place for our group to check out while we were in high school, and we did note some strange happenings. We would see mysterious headlights that would disappear (there was no place for a car to turn off the road!). My friends had a police scanner in their car, aka, a fuzzbuster, and the thing would go berserk down Munger. Because it was a dirt road, our cars would come out very dusty, but once there were distinct handprints on the trunk. Now as an adult, I can think of scientific explanations for this, but at the time, it was scary! There was also the time a cop came out of nowhere (we had been up and down the road several times and didn’t see him), pulled us over, but he was really nice about it and sent us on our way. I found it odd at the time because we had about seven teenagers stuffed into my friend’s teeny little hatchback car, and the police officer didn’t even say anything about it, much less write us seatbelt tickets. For months afterward, we would tell the story and call him ‘the Scooby Doo cop’.
In recent years, I’ve heard that the house has been torn down, and I wonder if kids still go there. Unfortunately, there has been at least one homicide around the area of Munger Road, which adds a whole new element to the fright. During our haunted house tour in Illinois the other weekend, we drove within yards of Munger, but we didn’t stop – we wanted to see haunted house attractions! Besides, I don’t even know if the area has the same sort of spooky appeal it had over a decade ago now…
I’ve found a little bit about Munger on the internet, including these stories, but I have yet to add my own. Maybe next time we’re in town we’ll drive by, just to see how the area has changed and what has become of Munger…
So it’s finally Halloween, time to share your own ghost story, or tales of rumored haunts near where you grew up. Add them to the comments section below, and have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
