These American Roads Come With Some Terrifying Baggage

It’s one thing to go trick-or-treating on Pleasant Drive in Almost Every Town Ever, USA.

But would you dare make your Halloween rounds on Devil’s Lane in Toms River, New Jersey, or Haunted Lane in Bensalem, Pennsylvania? What about Bucket of Blood Street in Holbrook, Arizona?

What’s in a name, anyway?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. Some of America's creepiest street names have histories steeped in bloodshed. Others come with legends of restless spirits, murderous creatures and things nobody has managed to explain. And a few are perfectly innocent, although you'd never guess it from the street signs.

Bucket Of Blood Street

Bucket of Blood sounds like a death metal band, but the name of this Holbrook, Arizona, street goes back to the Old West, when the town had a reputation for being wilder than Tombstone, where the gunfight at the O.K. Corral made Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday legends.

Holbrook was the “roughest, toughest, most lawless town of the Old West,” according to the Navajo County Historical Society. And apparently, it had the bloodstains to prove it.

According to the Show Low, Arizona, White Mountain Independent, a gunfight erupted inside Terrill’s Cottage Saloon, possibly over poker or cattle rustling. When the shooting stopped, someone reportedly remarked that it looked as though a bucket of blood had been spilled.

The saloon became known as Buckets of Blood, and the name eventually stuck to the street.

Haunted Lane

Haunted Lane in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, has all the makings of a Halloween horror tale: rattling chains, a creepy abandoned mansion and a ghost who supposedly wandered the banks of Neshaminy Creek searching for her drowned child.

The mansion had a reputation for being haunted by the early 1900s, and stories of the grieving mother dated back to the 1700s, according to Atlas Obscura.

Town officials tried to exorcise the spooky name in the 1950s, changing it to the considerably less interesting Totem Road.

Residents weren't having it. They fought to restore Haunted Lane, and in 1976, the town relented. Apparently, some people prefer a good ghost story to a reassuring street sign.

Devil’s Lane

Devil’s Lane in Toms River, New Jersey, isn't far from the legendary stomping grounds of the Jersey Devil, a creature that has supposedly terrorized the Pine Barrens for more than 250 years.

According to the Pinelands Alliance, the legend traces back to a woman who, upon learning she was pregnant with her 13th child, reportedly cried, “Let it be the devil!”

She supposedly got her wish. The child emerged as a winged monster and flew into the Pine Barrens, where generations of residents have blamed the creature for raided chicken coops, dead livestock and unexplained nighttime encounters.

Whether the creature had anything to do with the street's name is another question.

Shades Of Death Road

Then there's Shades of Death Road, a 6.7-mile stretch of asphalt winding alongside Jenny Jump State Forest in Warren County, New Jersey. With a name like that, you'd expect a body count. Depending on which local legend you believe, you wouldn't be disappointed.

According to Weird N.J., one tale blames a gang of squatters whose disagreements over women had a nasty habit of ending in murder. Another says the road was originally named for the dense canopy of trees overhead, with “of Death” tacked on after a string of unsolved killings.

Or maybe the culprit was malaria, which reportedly plagued nearby Great Meadows in the 1800s.

Murder? Mosquitoes? Too much shade? Pick your poison.

Witch Way

Leonardtown, Maryland, apparently has been living under a witch's curse for more than 300 years.

Legend has it that in the late 1600s, townspeople blamed a woman named Moll Dyer for disease and other misfortunes, then burned down her home, according to Washington City Paper.

She fled into the freezing woods, where she reportedly died beside a large rock, but not before cursing the town. The rock, supposedly bearing the imprint of her hand, survives in Leonardtown.

Whether the curse survived is another matter.

Bunny Man Bridge

Bunny Man Bridge in Clifton, Virginia, sounds innocent enough, although anyone who's ever encountered a 6-foot Easter Bunny with a frozen grin and dead eyes knows there's nothing remotely reassuring about a giant rabbit.

Add an ax, and things go downhill fast.

Depending on who's telling the tale, Bunny Man is an escaped killer, a deranged asylum patient or a bloodthirsty ghost in a rabbit suit who attacks trespassers with an ax and leaves bodies dangling from trees. According to Richmond Ghosts, saying his name three times at midnight supposedly summons him.

Unlike most urban legends, this one has a documented origin. In 1970, a man wearing a white bunny suit reportedly threatened a couple parked in a car in nearby Burke, Virginia, and threw a hatchet through their window.

Two weeks later, a similarly dressed man threatened a security guard at a construction site. Nobody was hurt, the culprit was never identified, and the tale grew increasingly gruesome with each retelling.

Apparently, a man in a rabbit suit wielding a hatchet wasn't disturbing enough on his own.

Hell Hollow Road

Hell Hollow Road in Voluntown, Connecticut, runs through Pachaug State Forest, where the name alone should give motorists second thoughts.

Early settlers probably weren't thinking about ghosts when they named the place, according to The Yankee Express. The rocky, flood-prone land made farming a living hell. The name stuck, and the ghost stories followed.

Among the alleged inhabitants are a 15-foot-long, mist-shrouded figure said to emerge from the woods and cross the road, and a woman supposedly killed by English soldiers in the 1600s, whose bloodcurdling screams are said to echo through the forest.

Hunters have reportedly fled after hearing the screams. The rocky soil may have been the least of the settlers' problems.

Old Ghost Road

Old Ghost Road outside Savannah, Georgia, isn’t officially called that. On maps, it’s Railroad Bed Road, a narrow dirt road winding through dense woods between Arcola and Brooklet.

But the considerably less bureaucratic nickname comes courtesy of generations of motorists who claim to have seen mysterious lights, shadowy figures and other things that have no business lurking along a deserted road after dark.

According to Savannah Ghost Tours, some blame the apparitions on restless Civil War soldiers. Others report cars that mysteriously refuse to start and cellphones that suddenly go dead.

Local legend even offers instructions for summoning the spirits: Park at midnight, flash your headlights three times and wait for glowing orbs to appear.

Whether anything supernatural answers is anybody’s guess. But sitting alone on a dark dirt road waiting for something to emerge from the woods seems like a fine way to scare yourself silly.

Tower Hill Roads

Rhode Island has not one but two Tower Hill Roads with ghostly reputations. Apparently, one haunted road wasn't enough for the smallest state.

On Tower Hill Road in Bristol, legend has it that the ghosts of Native Americans killed during King Philip's War in the 1600s still charge over a hill to the beat of phantom drums.

A woman told Bristol Patch that a strange fog approached her parked vehicle, appeared to take human form and vanished. Then the girls in the back seat started screaming about someone peering through the window. When they got home, they reportedly found handprints on the glass.

Meanwhile, Tower Hill Road in Cumberland has its own collection of alleged paranormal residents. According to Only In Your State, visitors have reported ghostly children, zombies, mysterious lights and a Bigfoot-like creature known as the “man monkey.”

Ghosts, zombies and an oversized primate. Rhode Island may be small, but its supernatural population is apparently thriving.

Gravity Hill

Gravity Hill on Richfield Road in Richfield, North Carolina, supposedly defies the laws of physics. Put your car in neutral at the bottom, and instead of rolling downhill, it mysteriously climbs uphill.

The explanation, according to local legend, involves a mother and child killed by a truck after their car stalled and the woman got out to push it to safety.

The mother's ghost supposedly still gives stranded motorists a helping hand. Sprinkle baby powder on the hood before the climb, and believers say you'll find ghostly handprints when you reach the top.

Of course, gravity hills are a known optical illusion. The road only looks like it goes uphill. That explains the car's movement, if not the alleged handprints.

Prospectors Road

Prospectors Road in Garden Valley, California, comes with a Gold Rush warning: If you strike it rich, keep your mouth shut.

Legend has it that a miner boasted about his gold strike in a saloon one night and ended up murdered by men who wanted his claim, according to Weird California.

Apparently, death hasn't improved his disposition. The tall, bearded miner supposedly still haunts the winding road, sometimes hovering above the ground and warning travelers to get off his claim.

He's also blamed for accidents, mysteriously opened doors and strange goings-on in nearby homes.

The Headless Horseman Bridge

Route 9 through Sleepy Hollow, New York, has a literary body count of zero, but don't tell that to Ichabod Crane.

In Washington Irving's 1820 tale, the lanky schoolteacher fled for his life from the Headless Horseman, a supposedly headless Revolutionary War soldier who roamed the countryside looking for his missing noggin.

The chase ended near the Old Dutch Church, where the Horseman hurled what turned out to be a pumpkin at poor Ichabod, who was never seen in Sleepy Hollow again.

The original bridge is long gone, but Route 9 follows the old Albany Post Road corridor, and an 18-foot steel sculpture immortalizes the chase.

According to Visit Sleepy Hollow, the bridge's exact historic location remains a matter of debate. The Headless Horseman, meanwhile, has been getting plenty of mileage out of one missing head for more than 200 years.

Archer Avenue

Archer Avenue on Chicago's Southwest Side has a hitchhiker who's been trying to get home since the 1930s. She's young, blonde, dressed for a night of dancing and, by all accounts, a lousy conversationalist.

She's also dead.

According to the Chicago History Museum, the legend of Resurrection Mary tells of a young woman killed by a car after a night at a local dance hall.

Ever since, motorists have reported picking up a mysterious woman in a white party dress who asks for a ride along Archer Avenue, only to vanish as they approach Resurrection Cemetery in suburban Justice.

Nobody has conclusively identified Mary, but that hasn't stopped her from allegedly hitching rides for nearly a century.

And at Chet's Melody Lounge across from the cemetery, there's traditionally a Bloody Mary waiting at the bar every Sunday. So far, she hasn't shown up to collect it.

Bray Road

Bray Road near Elkhorn, Wisconsin, has a problem that makes your average garden-variety ghost seem downright neighborly: a werewolf. Or something close enough to one that nobody wants to stick around and check its pedigree.

Sightings of the so-called Beast of Bray Road date back decades, with witnesses describing a hulking, hairy creature with a wolf's face, a man's muscular body and an unsettling habit of walking on two legs, according to Milwaukee Magazine.

The creature has supposedly chased people, attacked livestock and dined on roadkill. One teenage driver claimed the beast jumped onto the trunk of her car as she fled, only to slide off in the rain.

The Beast's reputation grew so fierce in the 1990s that a local newspaper sent reporter Linda Godfrey to investigate. She found plenty of people willing to swear they'd seen it, but no proof that Wisconsin had acquired its own werewolf.

Hellgate Drive

Hellgate Drive in Missoula, Montana, has a name that sounds like a warning from the devil himself. Its origins, though, are rooted in deadly human conflict.

The name traces to a canyon where Salish people traveling east to hunt bison on the plains risked deadly ambushes by Blackfeet warriors, according to the University of Montana. The grisly aftermath of those attacks gave the passage its ominous name: the Gates of Hell.

The name stuck around long enough that Missoula itself was originally called Hell Gate. The town eventually adopted the friendlier Missoula, but the canyon kept its foreboding name.

These days, travelers are more likely to encounter the bitter winter winds that roar through the narrow passage than anything resembling the dangers of centuries past.

Dead Man’s Curve

Dead Man's Curve in Clermont County, Ohio, was terrorizing travelers long before automobiles came along.

In the 1800s, its sharp bend at the top of a hill sent horses and carriages tumbling down the hillside. The road has since been straightened, but that didn't end the fatal crashes. In 1969, a high-speed collision killed five teenagers, and the intersection reportedly has claimed dozens more lives.

Then there's the faceless hitchhiker who supposedly haunts the road between 1:20 and 1:40 every morning.

According to legend, he sometimes materializes directly in front of approaching cars, then chases motorists who drive straight through him.

Why he clocks out after 20 minutes is one mystery the ghost hunters apparently haven't solved.

Route 66

Route 66 has been promising Americans their kicks for a century, but along its California stretch, some of the roadside attractions are ghost towns in the most literal sense.

The Mother Road winds through the Mojave Desert past abandoned towns, shuttered businesses and the remains of places that once thrived on travelers heading west.

Take Amboy, where the famous Roy's Motel & Café sign still beckons motorists, although the motel has been closed for years. Or Bagdad, a former desert stop that has all but vanished.

According to the Los Angeles Times and Legends of America, Interstate 40 bypassed communities like these, taking their customers and much of their reason for existing.

No supernatural intervention required. Sometimes the scariest thing on a highway is what happens when everybody stops using it.

Zombie Road

Zombie Road in Wildwood, Missouri, isn't officially a road anymore. Once called Lawler Ford Road, the notoriously creepy stretch was converted into Rock Hollow Trail in 2010.

But the nickname, and the ghost stories that inspired it, refuse to die.

It reportedly earned its nickname from a man known as Zombie, who supposedly escaped from a psychiatric hospital and disappeared into the woods, leaving behind his blood-soaked clothes, according to St. Louis Magazine.

That's just one of the tales. Others involve ghostly Native Americans, Confederate soldiers, dead quarry workers, phantom children and a woman killed by a train.

At least one death has a historical basis. Della McCullough was struck and killed by a train in 1876. But paranormal researcher Troy Taylor found no evidence of the supposed psychiatric hospital or a nearby orphanage that figures in another ghost tale.

The trail is closed after dark, so anyone hoping to encounter the undead will have to do so during daylight hours.

Apache Trail

Arizona's Apache Trail, a historic stagecoach route winding through the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix, has enough mystery to keep treasure hunters busy for several lifetimes.

Somewhere in those rugged mountains, legend has it, lies the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, a fabulous fortune supposedly discovered by German prospector Jacob Waltz.

People have spent generations looking for it, with no shortage of theories about where the gold is buried and precious little to show for their trouble.

The towering rock formation known as Weaver's Needle is supposedly a key landmark in finding the elusive mine, according to Across Arizona Tours.

The trail also passes Goldfield Ghost Town, a former mining settlement where tourists can now ride a train, explore a mine and shop for souvenirs.

Apparently, there's still money to be made in the Superstitions, even if nobody finds the gold.

Velvet Street

Don't be fooled by street names that sound as though nothing horrible could ever happen there. Velvet Street in Trumbull, Connecticut, for example, has a certain softness to it, but locals call it Dracula Drive, and the horrors supposedly lurking there go well beyond bloodsuckers.

The Melon Heads — small, humanlike figures with oversized heads said to lurk in the woods in eastern Fairfield County and western New Haven County — supposedly attacked, killed and ate people who wandered into their territory. Teenagers were said to be particular favorites on the menu. Stray cats and other animals supposedly weren't safe, either.

Velvet Street is practically party central for the Melon Heads.

Nobody seems to agree on where they came from, according to the New England Historical Society. One legend traces them to a family banished to the woods generations ago; another blames escaped psychiatric patients.

But the tales don't end with their origins. The creatures supposedly have glowing orange eyes and, in one particularly bizarre account, stole a Ford Granada from a group of teenage girls.

Velvet Street has its own collection of unsettling tales, including shadowy figures along the roadside and mysterious car trouble that leaves motorists stranded.

Apparently, the Melon Heads aren't big on hospitality.

Witchinghour Court

And then there's Witchinghour Court in Citrus Heights, California. No gruesome murders, restless spirits or ax-wielding maniacs required. Just a street name that sounds as though every house should come with a cauldron, a black cat and a standing appointment with the supernatural at midnight.

But there's a perfectly innocent explanation. Witchinghour Court is part of a neighborhood where the street names borrow from Cinderella, including Midnight Way, Glass Slipper Way and Carriage Drive, according to the Citrus Heights Sentinel.

After all those murders, ghosts and things that go bump in the night, it's nice to find a street where the worst that might happen is your carriage turning into a pumpkin — although, when you think about it, that would be pretty darned scary.

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