Tell me about your hometown quirks/traditions/urban legends!

[Pokeyonekenobie]

Ever hear the phrase "Somewhere a village is missing its idiot"?  Well, I think I found the village of idiots.  The mayor promised us a new library building because ours needs a new roof, new plumbing, new air conditioning/heating, new carpets and a multitude of other "upgrades" and it's cheaper to build a new building than to refurbish this one (again--this building has been a number of things including a Sears).  Not to mention that we are located on a fault line and it isn't up to current earthquake code because it was built so long ago.  People are complaining that we don't need a new building and it's a waste of money.  Of course, the ones complaining are people who have never set foot in a library, so there you go. (Sorry, I'm angry that they're trying to stop us from having a usable building just because they don't have the sense to use it.)  But it might be interesting for your characters to encounter a village of lost idiots.

[tikibirds]

Warrensburg's claim to fame is the worlds largest garage sale in october
http://warrensburggaragesale.com/

[ringwraith10]

Warrensburg's claim to fame is the worlds largest garage sale in october
http://warrensburggaragesale.com/

Aah, I'm so jealous! We have the "90 Mile Yard Sale" in my area but I always forget to go. The couple of years I went, though, I found some good ponies and Pokemon stuff!

[joce]

Gore orphanage is one of our local ones. I lived right off it so if someone would drive me home when I was younger they would get scared and roll up their windows. Funny to me lol. Story goes there was an orphanage that burned and the kids will knock on your car window. The place is creepy as can be. Weird stuff does happen there. Google gore orphanage for pics. I have gone canoeing and turned up the creek there and found so many dead raccoons and fish and it was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. The real story is the family that built the place had all their children die of cholera I think and the wife went on like they were alive forever. I think that's creepier than an orphanage burning down

  I know there are more but I'm brain dead apparently right now lol!

We have a cheese festival here every year and vermilion has the wooly bear festival which is interesting. Used to be a big thing when I was little and in school.

[dragonfly]

This is fascinating! I love hearing these stories.

[Dragonflitter]

This is such a cool thread! When I have time I'm going to come back and read all the stories in detail.

The only tale I can think of is that the Saco River near my town is supposedly haunted... They say back in the settling days, three white men saw a Native American woman walking with her infant next to the river. They had heard that the natives can instinctively swim from birth, so they took the infant from the woman and threw it in the river for fun. Of course it drowned. The woman, in her pain and fury, put a curse on the river, saying that every year until the end of time, the Saco River will claim the lives of three white people.

I heard this story all the time growing up. We would always tease our friends who went swimming in the Saco River, saying "Don't you know the story? There hasn't been three victims yet this year, better watch out!" Stuff like that. Didn't bother me as a kid, but kinda dark and twisted, thinking back on it now. o.o

[mlp4me]

I live in the 'electric city'. We have a nice hydro-electric plant.
We have a stinky mill that makes matches.
The first recorded land deed in Wisconsin was assigned to Dominique Ducharme in 1793 in my town.

[ringwraith10]

Gore orphanage is one of our local ones. I lived right off it so if someone would drive me home when I was younger they would get scared and roll up their windows. Funny to me lol. Story goes there was an orphanage that burned and the kids will knock on your car window. The place is creepy as can be. Weird stuff does happen there. Google gore orphanage for pics. I have gone canoeing and turned up the creek there and found so many dead raccoons and fish and it was the creepiest thing I have ever seen. The real story is the family that built the place had all their children die of cholera I think and the wife went on like they were alive forever. I think that's creepier than an orphanage burning down

Ooh, I would love to live next to a place like that! I love scaring my friends. Though the dead raccoon thing would definitely creep me out. O_o

[Galactica]

Hmm-  Seattle is mostly known for the rain and for the music scene maybe.  But there are a lot of haunted locations - way too many to even name. I've gone to them all of them hoping to see something- but never have.

I did however have a SUPER creepy feeling at one of he places though- the Butterworth building- it used to be a bar, and a restaurant, and a bunch of stuff that never stays in business. Now it's empty and locked up. But if you stand at the front door- I swear you will feel the CREEPIEST feeling- a bad bad feeling. 

Some SERIOUSLY messed up stuff used to happen in that building in the early 1900s.  It was a "full service" mortuary- but at some point (when bodies were piling up in the street) the City of Seattle had the brilliant idea of paying the mortuary $50 per body that it processed. The mortuary would split the fee with whoever brought in a body.  There was no requirement to have a cause of death- so of course this resulted in desperate people bringing in people who were not quite dead, or even murdering people to get the lousy $25 (which was more in 1900 than now of course). 
http://hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/The-Corrupted-Mortuary

Oddly enough the BACK part of the building is owned by Kell's Irish Bar- and they have been there for quite a while and never got chased off.  I guess the bar is haunted too-  people refer to these places as the same, but they really aren't- although they are connected. 

Eventually Kell's bought the super haunted part of the building that opens on 4th street- and I guess they are using it as storage?  They were going to expand and renovate- but super creepy things kept happening and now contractors just flat refuse to work on the place. (or so they say)






Post Merge: February 27, 2017, 04:41:22 PM

I live in Rotterdam, a town that was bombarded during WWII. There have been so many sightings of ghosts from WWII walking around, even at shopping districts. But the scariest thing that happened really close to my old home was the story of ''het Maasmeisje''.

The story of het Maasmeisje is terrifying because I was there when a few things happened. It's a story about a girl that was 12 years old and got killed by her own father somewhere in 2006. He cut her up in multiple pieces and threw most of it into the Nieuwe Maas, a river in Rotterdam. But he also threw bits and pieces into a garbage container, that container was located next to my elementary school. He probably choose that particular one because their house was located really closely to my school as well, as in it was in the same street. I remember that it was really hot outside and we got sent home earlier than usual. That was because the police found pieces of her body in that container. The smell was terrible, her flesh had been rotting in the hot sun and it was so intense that you couldn't help but (almost) puke. There was a silent march to honor her and I remember vividly how her mother was crying and screaming at the nightsky for her daughter. After a while there was this cold chill and it felt like the little girl told us ''Hey, it's okay, I'm going to a good place now''. Everyone got quiet and just left after a while.

Their house has been empty for years, no one lives there anymore. People avoid walking closely to it, as it has this cold, scary vibe to it. Last year there was a family that moved in there, but I believe they're out of the house already. I wonder what stories they have to tell.

Spooky! How sad that it happened so (relatively) recently