A haunted tour of Lock Haven in the I-80 Frontier
- by Lou Bernard
- August 28, 2024
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I’ve been working with my current PA Wilds editor, Britt Madera, for a few years now. She’s been a great editor and I enjoy working with her, so when she asked for a haunted tour of Lock Haven, I immediately agreed.
She didn’t just ask me randomly – I give tours of Lock Haven all the time. It’s one of the things I’m good at. In the summer, I give history tours for the local library, and sometimes when a nonprofit needs a boost, I’ll give a haunted tour as a fundraiser. And I can be booked for private tours.
Britt often hosts exchange students. She was going to be in our area with a former exchange student from Malaysia who was coming back to visit, Ariana. Since Ariana was visiting and had an interest in history, she thought a haunted tour would be fun. So we all showed up in Triangle Park, in the heart of Lock Haven, for our haunted walk.
It was about 7 p.m. when we started. Myself, Britt, and Ariana. Lock Haven is the county seat of Clinton County. The city was founded in 1833, and lies on the eastern side of the I-80 Frontier landscape within the PA Wilds region, very near the ends of Dark Skies and Elk Country landscapes.
The whole Susquehanna River valley was once known as “Otzinachson,” which, according to some sources, meant “the demon’s den.” This is a fun fact to begin with. Within sight of Triangle Park is the Carlson Building, said to be haunted by Eric Carlson, who knew the captain of the Titanic.
Across from there is the local newspaper, and I stopped and told the story of a writer and photographer from 1950. They’d heard stories of a headless ghost in Dark Skies territory, went up to investigate, and came back with a photo. This didn’t happen in Lock Haven, but it’s a good way to segue into stories from a few miles away.
By this point, Ariana was already visibly excited. I love that. I have a tendency to respond to the enthusiasm of my audience when I give a tour, and when they’re enjoying themselves, so am I.
Our next stop was a spot where Clinton County’s official monster was spotted in 1909. The Giwoggle, an odd mix of wolf, bird, and horse, was seen on top of a building by a man walking to work. The Giwoggle is an old legend from Elk Country, but it was witnessed in Lock Haven occasionally and makes a good addition to the tour.
You’d think to talk about the Jersey Devil on a tour, you’d have to actually go to New Jersey, but the cryptid has actually visited Lock Haven, as well. In fact, it did a whole trip through the eastern part of the I-80 Frontier, once upon a time, and landed on the roof of a house. I pointed this out on the tour, to the delight of Britt and Ariana.
We continued on to a haunted hotel where Mark Twain once stayed, the ghost of a bold Revolutionary War general, a haunted mansion, and a haunted house built around another house. Then we looped back around to Triangle Park, where I stopped and closed the tour with the story of the ghost that haunts my own home, a young girl named Ida who committed suicide in 1905.
It was a great tour, and Britt and Ariana had a visibly good time. Britt later sent me a message to let me know that the haunted Lock Haven tour was one of Ariana’s favorite things she had done in the United States… and this from a trip that also included New York City and Niagara Falls!
Practically every time I write about ghosts, I get someone criticizing me for it. But I don’t care. To one exchange student, I made the I-80 Frontier of the PA Wilds the coolest place she’s been.
