Ghost Town
25:52 Share

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature two stories about ghost towns. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Portlock, and it's about a town in Alaska with a very dark history.

The second and final story you'll hear is called Ghost Town, and it's about an abandoned town in an off-limits forest.

But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Deliberate in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, the next time the follow button is playing an intense game of online FIFA, wait until they take the lead and then go ahead and unplug their Wi-Fi. Okay, let's get into our first story called Portlock.

If you're ever worried about the safety of your home and family, there's no better time to act. Right now, you can get 60% off a new SimpliSafe security system, their best deal of the year. SimpliSafe is the home security I trust. I've been using it for a good while now, and I love the peace of mind it brings, knowing my home is protected 24-7. My listeners can get 60% off today just by visiting simplisafe.com slash ballin.

SimpliSafe is a new way to protect your home that stops intruders before they break into your home. Old school systems only take action once someone is already inside your home. And that's too late. SimpliSafe's ActiveGuard outdoor protection changes the game by preventing crime before it even happens. I love that now I don't have to worry when I leave my house.

Because I know if something happens while I'm gone, my SimpliSafe security system will alert me and also the police. Plus, there are no long-term contracts, no cancellation fees, and it's only around a dollar a day for all this protection. SimpliSafe is offering my listeners exclusive early access to their Black Friday sale. This week only, you can get 60% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. This is their best offer of the year. Head to simplisafe.com slash ballin.

That's simplisafe.com slash ballin. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, really any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, and new ways of thinking. Find the genres you love and discover new ones along the way. It

Explore bestsellers, new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks and originals that members can listen to all they want, with more added all the time. Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your daily routine, without needing to set aside any extra time. There's more to imagine when you listen.

Thank you.

Scattered across the North American continent are many ghost towns, places that used to be vibrant and alive that are now dead and abandoned.

In these places you can find old churches and buildings and schools that are usually in a pretty significant state of decay. The reasons a town might die varies. Sometimes it's because a new railroad or highway is put in that bypasses the town, or the town has just exhausted all of their natural resources which were the original draw to the town. Mining towns are a good example of that.

Other reasons are wars, natural disasters, political wranglings. There's a whole bunch of reasons why towns just suddenly stop existing. But there's one ghost town in North America that has a really unique and very dark reason for why it ultimately was abandoned. And that town is Portlock, Alaska.

Portlock, which is also called Port Chatham, is located on the farthest southwestern tip of the Kenai Peninsula. It's easily one of the most beautiful areas in all of Alaska, but it also happens to be very remote. And Portlock specifically, even by Kenai standards, is considered extremely remote. You can only get there by boat or by bush plane.

The town was technically founded in 1787 when Captain Nathaniel Portlock of the Royal Navy landed there, but it wasn't really turned into a real settlement until the early 1900s when commercial fishermen built a cannery there. By 1921, the town's fishing economy was doing so well that the US government believed they would be the next major commercial fishing hub, and so they actually established a post office there.

Everything seemed to be going great for Portlock until the 1930s when rumors began seeping out along the Kenai Peninsula that there was something wrong with Portlock. Men from this cannery town were going missing at an alarming rate, and the few that were found again were always found dead and mutilated in a nearby lagoon.

Initially, the townspeople believed these were bear attacks, but the natives of the Kenai Peninsula that found out about what was happening in Portlock, they stopped by and they said, "Those are not bear attacks. Those are almost certainly attacks by a creature we call the Nantina, which means half man, half beast. And they are tall, two-legged, hairy creatures that live in the forest right near you."

Now of course this just sounds like folklore, but when you consider the fact that from 1930 to 1950 dozens of Portlock residents disappeared in that forest or were violently killed and then dumped in the lagoon right outside of the forest, it makes you wonder what's in the forest. But since none of the people who went missing were ever found alive again, there was never any good description of what it was that was causing them to disappear in the first place. Well with the exception of one case.

In 1943, John Meyer, who was a resident of Portlock, was at his campsite and he was crouched down when he felt something leap onto his back and start pummeling his head and hitting him on the side. And he kind of went into the fetal position and then at some point his dog started barking and caused whatever was on his back to get scared and run off. And so John has been badly beaten, rolls over and he looks towards the tree line and he sees this enormous, tall, hairy man running into the woods.

And so John gets up and he stumbles his way into town to try to get help. And he's able to tell someone what happened to him before he ultimately succumbs to his injuries and dies. After the John Meyer incident, another group of Portlock men were up in the forest doing some hunting when they discovered these enormous 18 inch long tracks. And they followed them to a clearing where it looked like there was this epic death struggle that clearly two huge animals had gotten into a struggle here. There's blood everywhere. There's pieces of what looked like a bear or maybe a moose.

And then these tracks continued out of this clearing and went right up the mountain. And the men did not dare follow those tracks to see whatever it was that emerged victorious in this clearing. Even the Alaskan newspapers began speculating that something was off about Portlock. This was more than just some crime being committed, that there's something happening there that we can't understand.

And so by 1949, when people were still going missing mysteriously in the forest, and then other people were turning up dead and mutilated in the lagoon, the townspeople said, "Enough. This is an unsafe place to live. We don't know what's causing this, but we have to leave." And then practically overnight, the town evacuated, leaving behind most of their possessions.

The only person that stayed a little bit longer was the postmaster because he had to wait for the post office to be shut down. And he said it was horrifying that he would see things walking in the trees and he would hear these horrible sounds. And so he was eager to get out of there. And so in early 1950, he was allowed to go. And then that was it. The population of Portlock went down to zero.

After they left, none of the people from Portlock or any of their family members ever went back to Portlock. So the only people that have really ever gone back to Portlock are people that unfortunately wound up there.

like in the 1970s when some fishermen got caught in a storm and so they sought refuge in Portlock. But after setting up their camp, they saw something huge walk past them in the tree line and it apparently was so terrifying that they literally packed up their camp, went back in their boat, and then went back out into the storm to avoid whatever it was they saw.

Besides the fishermen, the only people that have gone to Portlock are people that want to come face to face with whatever it is that drove the people out of that town. But to put in perspective how few people do that, there's almost no modern photographs or videos of Portlock. But there is one very eerie modern photograph of this building that's right in the heart of Portlock.

It's one of the very few buildings that didn't collapse, and it's located right next to the forest where many of the men who went missing were last seen. And it's also not far from the lagoon where many of the dead men and dead people that were taken were found. And even if you don't believe there's some non-Tina running around the forest support lock, you have to understand that something was killing and taking these people, and to date, we still have no idea what it was. Mr. Ballin' Collection is sponsored by BetterHelp.

I'd like to take a moment to give a shout out to my amazing wife, Amanda. She's always been there for me in the best and the worst of times. And this month is all about gratitude. And so I'm sure all of us have at least one person in our lives that we're incredibly grateful for. But I want to point out that there's another person that we often don't thank enough, and that is ourselves. It's sometimes hard to remind ourselves that we are trying our best to make sense of everything all the time. And in this crazy world, that's not easy.

And so consider this a reminder to send some thanks to the people in your life, including yourself. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash mrballandpod today to get 10% off your first month. That

That's BetterHelp.com slash MrBallinPod.

As the weather gets colder, it's awesome to see how continuing those seasonal family traditions, like raking the leaves into a giant pile to jump into or making gingerbread houses together, can bring us even closer together. The holidays are a time to gather loved ones, but it also means lots of travel and last-minute errands. With the Life360 app, you can still keep your family connected. I especially love using Life360 at this time of the year, as the extended family travels from all over to be together. I never have to worry about how their trips are going.

because Life360 knows as well as I do. And features like crash detection with emergency dispatch will help protect every one of them on every drive. Life360 lets me keep track of where everyone is in real time to streamline family communication and coordination. Peace of mind in the palm of your hand. Knowing where everyone in your family is at any given time? Yes, please. It's all about safety. You'll know that everyone in your Life360 circle has crash detection, roadside assistance, and SOS with emergency dispatch.

Get the details on their day-to-day with real-time speed monitoring, 30 days of location history, and low battery alerts. Make everyday family life better. Visit Life360.com or download the app today and use code BALLEN to get one month of the gold package for free. That's Life360.com, code BALLEN. The next and final story of today's episode is called Ghost Town.

It was a bright summer day in 1906, and Dr. William C. Clark and his wife Harriet were driving slowly through a beautiful part of northwestern Connecticut called Litchfield County. Litchfield is a rural, very hilly area with lots of winding country roads, and the Clarks were there to try to scout out an area to build their second home.

The couple lived full-time in New York City, where Dr. Clark was an oncologist, which is a cancer doctor, and he was also a professor at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. And while the Clarks' lives were very exciting and fulfilling in the city, they were also very hectic and chaotic. And so the reason they had settled on Litchfield as the place to look for a location for their second home is because it was the total opposite of the city. It was quiet, it was peaceful, it was perfect.

And so as this couple from New York City drove along these winding backcountry roads, they eventually reached this beautiful covered wooden bridge. And after they drove across it, they got this view up onto this mountainside off to their right. And high up on this mountain was this huge, shaded, beautiful forest. And they saw there was a road that appeared to kind of spider off and go into these woods.

Now, the couple had no idea what was up there, but it was just so beautiful and they were immediately so drawn to it that they decided they would go check it out and see if maybe there was a spot for their second home in these woods.

And so Dr. Clark took the car and he went up this access road and very quickly as they began climbing up this hillside, the road became very bumpy and overgrown. It was pretty obvious that not many cars were driving into these woods. And so before they even reached the tree line, Dr. Clark had to pull the car over and park it on the side of the road. And then he and Harriet got out and then on foot they continued up towards the forest.

And once the couple actually entered the forest, immediately the sunlight faded because the canopy over their heads was so thick and the air became cool and refreshing. And after walking for only a couple of minutes, the forest, which at first seemed very still and quiet, suddenly became alive.

They could hear birds chirping and animals running around and insects buzzing. And then up ahead, they saw there was this field off to the side of the road that was full of all these wild apple trees growing in all different directions. And as they got closer, they saw there was just a deer right in the middle of the apple trees eating apples directly off the branches.

And then, just past all these apple trees, the couple began passing these huge beautiful patches of roses and lilacs and bright yellow bitter tansy flowers that lined the road. And then before long, the couple was stepping over these babbling brooks, and off in the distance they could hear the sound of running water like fresh spring water coming down off the mountain. And then, as the sun did begin to poke through the canopy above them, it almost looked like the forest was sparkling, literally.

This forest was sitting on a hillside, and the hillside, which was made up of rock, had mica inside of it. And mica is a kind of mineral that when sunlight hits it, it almost looks like it's shimmering. And of course, there were the owls. As Dr. Clark and his wife walked farther and farther into this beautiful forest, they heard more and more owls hooting off in the distance. And to the Clarks, this made the forest feel enchanted. It was like the owls were personally greeting them.

By the time the couple had turned around and begun heading back to their car, they had already made up their mind that they were going to build their second home in that forest.

And so, after returning to their home in New York, they promptly put in the paperwork to purchase 1,000 acres inside of that Connecticut forest. And that forest had a name. It was called Dark Entry, and it was named that because it looked like from the outside, the forest was basically dark all the time. There was shade cast on it from mountains nearby, and then also the canopy inside of Dark Entry is exceptionally thick.

At one time, there actually had been a town inside of Dark Entry Forest, however, all the people who had lived in that town were now all gone. The only remnants of this town were a couple of crumbling stone walls and a couple of home foundations that were scattered about the Dark Entry Forest floor.

The Clarks had seen some of these ruins as they walked along this overgrown path through the forest, but they weren't concerned. Instead, they felt like these ruins actually added some charm to the forest. After the land purchase was finalized, Dr. Clark began looking for local builders in Connecticut who could help him build this second home inside of Dark Entry Forest. But no matter how much money he offered these local Connecticut builders, they all said no.

Now, none of them gave a straight answer to Dr. Clark about why they were turning him down. So Dr. Clark just kind of assumed that, you know, hey, this project is not huge. It's just one house and the forest is pretty isolated and hard to get to. And so he thought, you know, probably these builders think it's not worth the effort. But Dr. Clark was not discouraged. He decided he would just build the house himself.

After all, he was a very handy, competent guy who had grown up on a farm in New Jersey, and so he knew how to build things. And so for the next several months, Dr. Clark would travel from New York City to Dark Entry Forest every weekend, and he would build this home.

First, he cut down this massive swath of hemlock trees on this one flat patch of his land. And then with all this lumber he had cut down, he built his rustic two-story cabin on this flat part of his land. And then nearby on this hilltop, there was a freshwater spring at the top. And so he laid piping from the spring into his cabin so they could have fresh water.

And then at the bottom of this nearby hill was this brook, and Dr. Clark loved just standing and watching this brook because inside of it were all these trout that would dart all around. And so Dr. Clark built a swimming pool with beautiful mossy embankments right up against this brook so he could sit there and watch the fish. By Thanksgiving of that year, the cabin was done, and so Dr. Clark and his wife Harriet, they stayed at the cabin to celebrate the holiday.

And as they were sitting in their swimming pool watching the trout and listening to the owls hoot off in the distance, they both agreed that this second home was like their little piece of heaven.

So, every summer from there on out, and every major holiday that they could manage it, the Clarks would travel to their home in Dark Entry Forest, and they would swim and hike and relax, and they'd watch the leaves on the mountainside turn from green to bright yellows and oranges and reds. It was perfect. That is, until 1918. That summer, the couple was in their second home in the forest when Dr. Clark was suddenly called back to New York to attend to a medical emergency.

Harriet was very upset at the prospect of suddenly being left alone in this cabin in the middle of the forest by herself for who knows how many days. And so when she dropped her husband off at the nearby train platform, she made him promise that he would come back soon. And he said he would. And then Dr. Clark got on the train, it took off, and Harriet just stood there with her arms crossed, watching it as it chugged along off into the distance.

From his comfortable seat on that train, Dr. Clark had no idea that his wife was about to endure a nightmare while he was gone. When the Clarks bought their 1,000 acres in the Dark Entry Forest, they did virtually no research on the forest or the surrounding area. If they had, they very likely would not have purchased that land.

You see, the town that used to be inside of the Dark Entry Forest that was now just ruins that the Clarks saw when they first walked around inside of the forest was abandoned for a very specific reason. It was cursed. At least that's what the locals say. And in fact, that was the reason why no builders in the area were willing to go with Dr. Clark into the forest to go build his house. Because they were too scared to go anywhere near the ruins of this cursed town.

This town, which was known as Dudleytown, was first settled sometime in the 1740s. At first, it was just a couple of people and a couple of small structures, but pretty quickly, 30 families had moved in and it was a thriving little town. But as the 1700s came to a close, terrible things began to happen to residents of this town.

First, there was the Carter family. They moved to Dudleytown in 1759, and shortly after arriving there, six members of their family all died suddenly from cholera.

The remaining branch of the Carter family was so grief-stricken from their losses that they left Dudleytown and went to New York where they resettled. But almost immediately after getting set up there, Native Americans raided their property and massacred them. And the three people that survived this massacre were three of the kids and they were all kidnapped and taken away.

In 1792, a Dudley resident named Hollister died suddenly. Now, we don't know if he fell off a roof or if he was murdered. No one really knows. But what we can agree on is that his untimely death happened in the home of a man named Tanner. And Tanner, following Hollister's death, suddenly just began obsessively talking about these strange creatures he was seeing out in the woods at night, kind of roaming around the dark entry forest.

And he talked about it all the time and nobody listened to him. And eventually Tanner went insane and his daughter had to care for him for the rest of his life. And while Tanner was slowly losing his mind, his next door neighbor named Abel also began reporting that he was seeing weird creatures roaming around the tree line all around the town.

And as Abel continued to report seeing these strange creatures lurking in the shadows, he too slowly went mad and had to be cared for until his death.

In the early 1800s, a famous Revolutionary War hero, General Herman Swift, who lived in Dudleytown, lost his mind shortly after his wife was struck by lightning. And then in 1813, an unknown epidemic rolled through Dudleytown and killed many of its residents.

After that, more and more residents of Dudleytown either died suddenly or died mysteriously. And also, more and more residents began coming forward with stories about having seen these strange shadowy creatures moving around the treeline at night. By about 1900, all the Dudleytown residents had either died or simply just left, abandoning their homes. Except for one family, the Brophy's.

But, in quick succession, the Brophy family's sheep all died, then the mother died of tuberculosis, then the two sons were accused of theft in a nearby town, and then they just disappeared, leaving one person, John Brophy, the father. But, the Brophy family home burned to the ground, and so John, who was overcome with grief, just wandered off into the forest and was never heard from again.

At that point, Dudleytown officially became a ghost town. No one lived there. And it was at that point in 1906 when Dr. Clark and Harriet had their beautiful summer's day walk through the forest and discovered where they wanted to build their second home.

So, fast forward back to 1918, and Dr. Clark, he's on his medical emergency leave to New York. It winds up being very quick. He's back on a train within 36 hours, and he pulls into the station right near Dark Entry Forest, and he's expecting to see Harriet waiting on the platform for him. But when the train rolled into the station, she wasn't there.

Now, Dr. Clark was not a superstitious person, but for some reason, when he didn't see his wife there, he just felt like something was off. There's no reason she wouldn't have come out here to greet him. I mean, she was worried about being all alone in the cabin, and she knew he was going to be arriving at that moment. And so, feeling a little bit panicked, Dr. Clark left the train station and, on foot, made his way over to the Dark Entry Forest.

And when he got there and began walking on that overgrown road path that led to his house, immediately as soon as he was within the shade of the trees, he began hearing these owls hooting very loudly off in the distance.

Now, normally the sound of these owls hooting made him feel welcome. But this time he felt scared. He felt like something was wrong up ahead. And so he began jogging through the forest and it's very dark and all he can hear is the sound of these owls and it's getting louder and louder and louder. And then finally he reaches the clearing where his property is. And at this point, it's a cacophony of owls hooting practically right on top of him. And he looks up towards his house up on this hill and he sees the front door is slightly open.

And so now with his heart racing, wondering what's going on with his wife, Dr. Clark runs up to his front porch. He gets to the door and he flings it open the rest of the way. And then right before he stepped into his house, this sudden high-pitched noise began up on the second floor inside of his house. And it was so startling to Dr. Clark that he just froze where he was.

And so suddenly it's so loud from the owls all around him in the woods behind him and whatever this noise is that he just stood there unsure what to do. And so as he's sitting there getting the courage up to go investigate his house, he realizes what this high-pitched noise is. It's the sound of maniacal, insane laughter coming from the second floor.

sensing his wife had to be in danger, the doctor charged up the nearby steps up to the second floor and he could tell this laughter, this high-pitched laughter was coming from the master bedroom. And so he ran down the short hallway, he got in front of the closed door that led into the master bedroom, he slowly opened it up, and there in the back corner of his room was his wife.

She was on the ground, rolled up in a ball, facing the door. Her hands were clenched in fists. Her eyes were open and unblinking, and her mouth was open wider than was humanly possible. And as he's staring at his wife, wondering what's going on, he realizes this insane high-pitched laughter is coming from his wife. But it doesn't even look like it's coming out of her. Her chest is just heaving. Her mouth is staying open, and the laughter is just coming out of her.

And so the doctor just stood there watching his waifu staring directly at his eyes. And finally, he just got so scared, he turned and he ran. During Dr. Clark's 36 hours he was away in New York, something happened to his wife. We don't know what it was, but it caused her to lose her mind. The only thing she would talk about was the strange creatures she saw out in the forest.

By some accounts, Harriet spent the rest of her life in a mental asylum. By other accounts, she went back with Dr. Clark to New York, where she took her life.

Today, Dudleytown is not only still abandoned, but it is also illegal to visit. However, people do still sneak into Dudleytown and walk around the ruins, and many of them have reported feeling these pockets of cold air where there shouldn't be cold air, and also some others have said as they've been walking, they've felt phantom hands slap them and push them.

Some have said they've taken photographs inside of the Dark Entry Forest near Dudleytown and they've captured strange shadowy figures that they couldn't see with their naked eye. The famous paranormal couple Ed and Lorraine Warren shot a special series in the 1970s inside of the Dark Entry Forest and they declared the area around Dudleytown was demonically possessed.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios podcasts, not just this one, but also Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, and Run Full. Just search for Ballin Studios on any podcast platform and you'll find all of them. If you want to watch hundreds more strange, dark, and mysterious stories, just head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin.

So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.

Please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of The Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark, and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

and as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between.

Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music.