The History Press

Scary, mysterious & just plain weird stories from Southern Ohio

The southern portion of the Buckeye State has long attracted its fair share of colorful characters and odd occurrences. Infamous bootlegger George Remus rose to power shortly after moving to Cincinnati. Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys, was born and raised in southern Ohio. Some even say creatures not of this planet are drawn to the area, which has had numerous UFO sightings. In the same region, an unassuming university professor got away with murder, an eccentric built his version of a European castle using nearby river rocks, and a headless motorcycle ghost roams a rural roadway.

Ride along with author James A. Willis as he ventures into Southern Ohio in search of all things strange and spooky.

From the jail cell that once held John Dillinger to quaint shops with dark beginnings, the restless spirits of Crown Point purportedly result from a century-old hex.

Legend had it that a caravan of gypsies found themselves unfairly exiled from town. Forced to leave their beloved dead behind in unmarked graves, they invoked a venomous curse on the townspeople and vowed that no ancestor would be allowed eternal peace. Paranormal researcher Judith Tometczak exposes evidence of this deceptively quiet town's dark side.

Springfield has launched a lot of history, from the career of Abraham Lincoln to the wagon train that bore the doomed Donner party. But some pieces of that history stubbornly linger to haunt the present. Meet the Gibson Girl who introduced her society circle to séances and the vengeful actor who held down a leading role as mischief maker after death. From the shadows in Oak Ridge Cemetery’s Receiving Vault to specters at the Vinegar Hill Mall, Garret Moffett offers an expanded tour of the eerie corners of Springfield’s past.