Settle in my friends as I spin a trilogy of terror for you. Three (true?) tales of the northwoods of Wisconsin. It starts like this….
ACT I: The Paulding Light
About half an hour from where I’m staying is the town of Eagle River. A simple little piece of Americana with 4th of July parades, homecoming queens and apple pie. But
there’s something else……..mysterious lights that linger in the night skies north of
Eagle River.
Although some local people claim to have seen the strange lights over a long period of time, the first reported sighting was in 1966. A carload of teen-agers had stopped one clear evening along a swampy area of the old Military Road called Dog Meadow. Suddenly light filled the car's interior and lit the power lines paralleling the road. The frightened young people fled to report their experience to the sheriff. Since that time, many have witnessed the phenomenon, but none can explain it.
Local lore spins haunting legends. Some say that one night, about forty years ago, a railroad switchman, lantern in hand, was crushed to death between two cars while attempting to signal the train's engineer. Others say that an engineer was murdered along the old railroad grade where the lights appear. A third story tells of a mail carrier and his sled dogs that were mysteriously slain a hundred years ago at Dog Meadow. (WEEEEEEOOOO!!!!)
The lights appear near the scenes of these various alleged tragedies and are thought to be connected with them. The lights can be seen on almost every clear night in all seasons of the year.
One motorist, coming up over the crest of the gravel road that runs parallel to the old abandoned track bed, faced a golden bull's eye and, thinking it to be a one-eyed car, pulled off the road to avoid a head-on collision. There was no car. (DUN DUN DUN!!!)
On a frigid winter evening, a group of snowmobilers came upon the light. Not knowing what to make of it and badly frightened, they tried to surround it, to no avail. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
On another night, a drunken fellow from Eagle River shot at the light but it disappeared first.
I’ve personally been told stories that people have witnessed the Grim Reaper wondering the woods where the lights have shown. Perhaps the Reaper and the Railroad Switchman have some unfinished business. (BOO!)
ACT II: Witches Lake
There’s a lake called Witches Lake. I guess it’s creepy.
ACT III: Summerwind
Less than an hour away from Minocqua is the remains of the most disturbing twisted tale of the macabre. Summerwind Mansion is a ruined mansion on the shores of West Bay Lake. It is believed to be the most haunted location in all of Wisconsin. Abandonment, fire and death have left little of the always tragic but once beautiful home.
In the north woods of Wisconsin, not far from the shores of West Bay Lake, there stands a burned out hollow of a building once known as Summerwind Mansion. Nature has almost thoroughly reclaimed the ruins of the once grandiose estate, wrapping leaves and vines around the remaining chimneys and stone terrace. In 1988, when several strokes of lightening struck the already long-abandoned mansion, reducing it to ash and cinders, nobody in the immediate vicinity mourned much. Beautiful as it had been, Summerwind had been the Spooky Old House that Nobody Dared Go To for nearly fifty years. Every attempt to restore the house had been abandoned, and contractors often outright refused to set foot on the property upon learning of its location.
The mansion was already in a state of serious disrepair when Ginger Hinshaw happened upon it in 1970. What started out as an innocent day trip to a local haunted house quickly turned into an obsession. Ginger fell in love with the sadly neglected home and soon had her second husband Arnold infatuated as well. The couple bought the house and moved in with their six children, planning to restore the place to its previous majesty. But their efforts were not rewarded. Upon removing a shoe drawer from a closet, Arnold discovered a crawlspace hidden behind it, too small for him to investigate. Upon sending his daughter into the tiny space, a mummified human skeleton was discovered, its skull still covered in long black hair. For reasons unknown, the Hinshaw’s did not remove the corpse, nor did they alert the authorities. Ginger later reported that the body had disappeared when she and her brother went to retrieve it several years later.
Shortly after the discovery of the body, Arnold began to exhibit signs of severe mental deterioration. Formerly a loving husband and father, he turned into a bullying tyrant who spent the long nights playing sinister dirges on the pipe organ and even going to far as to slaughter a family pet as punishment for his children’s perceived disobedience. His transformation into a reclusive maniac led to the loss of his job and the family’s plunge into despair. The heat and electricity were shut off. Ginger made a suicide attempt. Finally, six months after having moved into the home, Ginger’s father collected his daughter and grandchildren and the house was abandoned. Arnold was sent to an insane asylum and was never heard from again.
Vowing never to set foot back on the property, Ginger nevertheless took an interest in the paranormal and began studying the field. In 1972, despite her angry pleas, Ginger’s father purchased Summerwind as a fixer-upper project for his son Ray, recently returned from Vietnam. Ray, like his father, was a staunch skeptic when it came to ghosts, but his tenure at Summerwind was far shorter than his sister’s. After hearing phantom gunshots in the kitchen and witnessing a full form apparition materialize in the basement doorway, Ray too abandoned the property, shaken to the core. A few weeks later, he agreed to allow his sister hypnotize him for a common nail-biting problem. Once under however, Ray underwent a complete change of personality, morphing into a powerfully pissed off tyrant of a man who insisted that Summerwind was his property, no others need apply.
Research into the history of the property revealed a once famous explorer named Jonathan Carver, who had once settled a dispute between two warring Native American nations and claimed to have been granted the northern Wisconsin territories by the grateful Indians. It was rumored that the land deed was secreted away on the property, and that this was the reason for the haunting, but no such document ever surfaced. Originally constructed as a fishing lodge in 1916, Summerwind’s servants had complained that the house was haunted even then. The owners – Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lamont – paid no heed to the stories and continued to live in the mansion until the mid 1930s, when they suddenly abandoned it. According to legend, Robert and his wife were startled one night by an apparition in the basement doorway, at which Mr. Lamont fired with his revolver. The bullet holes could still be clearly seen up until the 1980s, when the door suddenly went missing, no doubt stolen by over eager legend trippers.
Abandoned for the remainder of the 1970s, Summerwind was again purchased in the mid 80s and restoration again commenced. However, contractors remained reluctant and the process was slow going. Strange phenomena was reported by the new owners and the mansion’s reputation soured all the more. Then came 1988, and the fateful lightening storm which leveled the house in fiery display of Heavenly Judgment.
In 2005, the story of the Summerwind Mansion was turned into a one hour docudrama for the Discovery Channel series “A Haunting.” The majority of the haunting of Summerwind seems to rest solely on the eyewitness accounts of the Hinshaw family, whom some claim were simply cashing in on the notoriety of the property, much as the Lutz family was accused of doing in 1977 with the release of the book “The Amityville Horror.”, their collaborative effort with Jay Anson. But those who make the long, lonely trek to the ruins still claim to experience strange phenomena, ghostly noises and paranormal side effects. Any proof of Jonathan Carver’s existence most likely went up in flames twenty years earlier, in the freak fire that reduced the once gorgeous palace to a mere spooky legend. (MWAH HA HA HA!!!) ß---That’s an evil laugh.
I promise the next post will be more "fun". : )
In 2005, the story of the Summerwind Mansion was turned into a one hour docudrama for the Discovery Channel series “A Haunting.” The majority of the haunting of Summerwind seems to rest solely on the eyewitness accounts of the Hinshaw family, whom some claim were simply cashing in on the notoriety of the property, much as the Lutz family was accused of doing in 1977 with the release of the book “The Amityville Horror.”, their collaborative effort with Jay Anson. But those who make the long, lonely trek to the ruins still claim to experience strange phenomena, ghostly noises and paranormal side effects. Any proof of Jonathan Carver’s existence most likely went up in flames twenty years earlier, in the freak fire that reduced the once gorgeous palace to a mere spooky legend. 
Anyways, I've relocated to Minocqua, WI to run a Papa Murphy's Take n Bake Pizza restaurant. Did I just spell restaurant correctly? Oh well, no one will notice. Minocqua is known as the Island City (or something, I'm not fact checking here). There are lakes and trees and stuff everywhere. I wonder what the Native American word for "there are lakes and trees and stuff everywhere" would be? It's probably how they came up with about half the names of things around here. Also, that might be lyrics for the America song, "Horse With No Name." Here are the actual lyrics, "There were plants and birds and rocks and things, There was sand and hills and rings." Yup, sounds like a 1st grader's report about a class trip to the dessert.
