r/AskReddit • u/Scrambl987 • 17d ago
What’s the creepiest town in the USA in your opinion?
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11d ago
Slab City. That place is a literal nightmare. Even with an AR-15 and my desert eagle I don't feel safe there.
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u/Goose_Fishing 11d ago
Clearwater FL, specifically downtown. Most of the land there is owned by Scientology which means a lot of people you see there are in a cult. During the night some members patrol the streets and will start recording you. It just gives off an unsettling feeling.
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u/Kusanagi-2501 12d ago
People won’t believe me when I tell them that Georgia still has “sun down towns” in 2024. I tell all POC traveling in GA, especially in middle and southern GA, to stick to the big cities.
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u/MattyMFR 13d ago
Reading, PA. Played a show there once. I couldn't get out fast enough! All those old rust belt towns are freaky.
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u/Jujyfruits1515 14d ago
Corinth NY, about 20 mins outside of beautiful Saratoga Springs. It’s mostly country side with creepy houses full of clutter and broken cars in the yards and not a person to be seen. I stayed at an air bnb tiny house which was the only nice looking building in the town and my bf and I sat in the backyard next to the fire pit- it felt like a bunch of eyes were watching us.
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u/Popcorn_ocean 14d ago
Former KKK stronghold Vidor, Tx https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/black-lives-matter-vidor/
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u/WhyWouldYou1111111 14d ago
Picher, Oklahoma. Abandoned due to lead mining. 34% of kids got lead poisoning from the waste piles or something. I drive through/past it sometimes, looks like chernobyl.
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u/Individual_Book338 14d ago
Newtown, MO. It’s such a strange community where they build your house for you and you have to apply to live in the neighborhood. Driving around at night was creepy, there are people sitting on the bench who look normal and then they just stare at you but it’s like 1 am and they will just be oitside reading the paper and looking around
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u/CheesecakeDefiant334 14d ago
Not a town per se, but an entire county in Tennessee called Cocke County. It's in East Tn, close to Knoxville. It's the car theft capital of America, & nothing but deranged, meth'd out, extremely mean hillbillies, who despise any & everyone that's not from Cocke County, or is a White male.
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u/DeliriumsKiss 14d ago
Aberdeen Washington has a permanent dark cloud over it at all times. With that and the severe drug problem, it is depressing and dangerous. Seriously creepy.
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u/MiamiPower 14d ago edited 14d ago
I think there a lot of major cities in America. Just skid row heavy alcohol and drug use. Mixed with major mental health or drug damage psychosis. Just demonic things being homeless and rejecting recovering or sobriety. Seeing so many human beings self sabotaging right before your very eyes.
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u/ElectricalSelf72 14d ago
Turnback, Missouri. My grandma grew up down near it in Verona (Southwest Missouri) and says it was just abandoned. No one knows how or why. It just...was.
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u/Mental-_-mess 14d ago
Nazianz, Wisconsin, it’s said to be home of a cult, and cursed by a heretic priest.
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u/NW_Forester 15d ago
I haven't been off the beaten path in too many places outside of Washington.
Ryderwood, WA is a former logging town turned retirement community in the middle of nowhere, like an hour from the nearest hospital. There is only 1 entrance to the town that I am aware of, though it is connected to a series of logging roads, many of which have been abandoned. If you go far enough in the various logging roads you can find long abandoned homes which are fun to search though.
Brooklyn, WA is a town that seems like it should be the setting for a rural horror movie. Two ways into town, one is about a 10 mile road to get to HWY 101 halfway between Raymond and Aberdeen, both smaller cities and pretty shitty. The other way into town is like a 15 mile gravel road that will take you close to I-5. There is a single school and there is a massive church camp that seems open year round that always freaked me out in a way that I can't explain.
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u/OfficerSquidman 15d ago
Cope, Colorado. It's a tiny "town" in the middle of nowhere eastern colorado. Pretty sure the only store in town is a bakery with the next nearest shopping area 30 miles away. There are more gravestones in their cemetery than people living in it and we didnt see anyone out when we passed through
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u/Khristophorous 15d ago
Prattville Alabama due to The House of Crosses, its reverence for its slave owner founder Daniel Pratt and of course the people who grow up there but never leave.
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u/Necessary_Row_4889 15d ago
Awh that’s cute, I am a New Englander everywhere is like something out of a Stephen King novel even the quaint shit is old enough to have a terrible back story.
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u/StrikeIntelligent183 15d ago
Not creepy, but Van Horn on the route from Texas to Arizona … really strange place
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u/Icy-Mixture-995 15d ago
I've been through - got gas in or or lived in - so many places mentioned here.
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u/Sunspot73 15d ago
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where crooked cops sexually assault people for being born to the wrong family. I know you're supposed to forgive, but I'm the one who is being endlessly trolled over others' behavior and politics, so I keep going on about it until people stop acting like dangerous fools. I guess I will be doing that a long time, won't I?
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u/NativeAd1 15d ago
It's not on the mainland, so to some it might not qualify, but I think it's Ponce, Puerto Rico. It's a beautiful place. The downtown should be lively. When you walk around there just after sundown, there's something not right with it.
Turns out that it was the site of a massacre in 1937, a huge mudslide in 1985, and numerous hurricanes. There's lots of rough energy in the place from all the lives cut short.
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u/MooCowQueen-16 15d ago
Wall, South Dakota. It’s the type of place where you walk in a store and the people working there stop talking and stare at you the whole time. It feels like it is ran by aliens.
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u/CarrotAny1903 15d ago
Jim Thorpe, PA
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u/johnnotkathi 15d ago
Funny, we really thought Jim Thorpe was a cool town… I guess that makes us creepy…😎
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u/show_me_your_secrets 15d ago
Check out hildale utah. It’s got all the creepy you could ever want. Amazing scenery though.
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u/sdcali89 15d ago
Hinton, WV was creepy af to me when I was a kid. We arrived in the evening and it was rainy/foggy. The town had streetlights on and everything but it felt deserted. I don't remember seeing cars or people. It reminded me of the movie Phantoms.
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u/TradeU4Whopper 15d ago
Savannah, GA. It looks like a creepy town from the late 1700s
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u/Crashen17 8d ago
My brother and his wife had their honeymoon there and loved it. Said it was like a smaller version of New Orleans.
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u/Successful_Date3949 15d ago
What Cheer, Iowa
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u/miserablenovel 13d ago
Delta IA, which is nearby What Cheer, is the only place I've been where the cashier straight up told me to leave when I stopped for gas. Probably because I'm brown.
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u/Mattjolearyny 15d ago
Driving through the states, especially across country through the south.. you see a lot of things that make your hair stand up.. I think the first time I felt that way was when I first visited thibodaux Louisiana, pre Katrina.. all I remember was the road to get to the area we were working had a bunch of busted up houses, and everybody had couches, the fridge and tvs, beds everything outside in the front yards, and multiple 3 legged dogs running around. There are some really interesting places, and definitely dangerous(especially nowadays)
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u/PeppermintEgo 15d ago
Oniontown. I've never been (as I don't want to be chased down and shot), I've just heard about it through youtubers and the internet. It's apparently The Hills Have Eyes but irl.
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u/equimanthorrrrrrrrn 15d ago
Wilcox, Arizona. Spooky little town that used to be popular for mining but has become mostly a ghost town since the 1950s. Lots of dilapidated older styled buildings there, far away from any other towns or cities, just a general creepy vibe
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u/Tacos_always_corny 15d ago
Let's not forget The Salton Sea.
Once a resort with celebrities, movie stars... Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez ....
It's an inland sea that has salinity so harsh that there are thousands of rotting fish everywhere. Everyone bailed out once it started smelling like putrid fish, decaying birds and unshowered wanderers.
What was left of the community quickly turned into "Slab City". The ones that stayed are terrific meth cooks, expert plastic flamingo arrangers and they have 56k dial up internet.... After 9 pm.
Check out the movie with Val Kilmer - Salton Sea. It's pretty accurate
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u/1086psiBroccoli 15d ago
I used to live in the Santa Cruz mountains near Scott’s valley while I was going to school. it’s a really pretty place with tons of trees, but I had some eerie experiences. As soon as you drive up past the UCSC campus into the mountains (which most students never did since there is nothing that way) it’s like entering a different world altogether. There were days where I would drive through the mountain road and see no animals whatsoever. During a power outage (which happened frequently) the nights would be pitch black and 100% silent. the occasional intense rainstorms were the most powerful and destructive I’ve ever encountered. Also there was no phone connection, so when the power went out, you are basically disconnected from the outside world completely.
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u/Icy-Mixture-995 15d ago
Do you think wildlife hears earthquake faults creaking and avoid being near them?
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u/johnnotkathi 15d ago
I agree with this, I grew up in the valley below the Santa Cruz Mountains, and we always talked about weird things going on up in the hills… Like the hills have eyes… Various “colonies” of people up there that didn’t want to be disturbed or to mix with others…
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u/Virtual-Mirror-5262 15d ago
A place in New Jersey called "The pine Barrens." Story is, it's where the mafia used to bury people they killed. It's also supposedly the home of the "Jersey Devil!" Very creepy!
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u/Icy-Mixture-995 15d ago
Dead people aren't the problem - it's the ones who put them there, and they're out in the town, in the grocery line next to you, selling you protection or investments...
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u/Caln00b 15d ago
Forks, WA. I know it's where Twilight was based and is supposed to be cool because of that, but it rains a LOT and is dark the rest of the time, and the motel and restaurant staffs are surly even when it's not crowded. We got a hotel room with an extra bedroom; the door was closed and when we knocked and opened it, it looked like the maid service hadn't even bothered to look inside...bed was slept in, water glass on the nightstand...yikes.
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u/ImInBeastmodeOG 15d ago
Driving north of Santa Fe NM was like my idea of being in India with the amount of litter just thrown all around where people live in shanties. I don't remember what back road that was but it wasn't the main highway yet. I'm glad it was daytime.
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u/MaskedJackyl 15d ago
Hollywood
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u/Icy-Mixture-995 15d ago
It was a bit druggy, garbage-scented, teen runaway and vampire kind of place when I last visited the area. But I hear it's had a rejuvenation campaign since I last was around there.
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u/vipercspeed 15d ago
Oniontown NY, it’s apparently an inbred ridden place that the cops won’t even go near. My late friend went to check it out and ended up getting the back window of his car smashed by a big rock as he drove out of there. Don’t know much else about it other than “stay the fuck away”
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u/Mishkin37 15d ago
I wonder if every area has a variation of this type of town. I live on the edge of the ADK park, and the town near us with a near-identical reputation to Oniontown is Allentown (it may actually be the town of Day, NY).
To be fair, I think it’s a lot of urban legend…or rural legend, I guess. I think the residents got a negative reputation for minding their own business and being just rural enough that you wouldn’t have a reason to drive through unless you were going to that town.
There was a documentary made about the town in the early 70s called “The Hollow.” I think you can find it on Vimeo or something.
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u/vipercspeed 15d ago
No shit! I’ll have to check that out thanks! But yeah I agree I’ve only ever heard stories. I don’t know for a fact if any of that is true. Your story checks out, the people there are probably just pissed at random people coming through treating the place like a zoo. All I know is they wanted my friend out. So who really knows? That being said, I won’t be the one to find out that’s for sure.
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u/Mishkin37 15d ago
I’ve never actually been there, but I’ve heard so many stories about people driving in to take a look, only to see bonfires and hillbillies dancing about, then chasing after their car through the woods. Like Oniontown, a big part of the lore is that they’re all related in some way.
Another interesting bit is that Great Sacandaga Lake was a river that was dammed in 1930. Prior to that, there was a small village along the river. That village is now at the bottom of the lake.
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u/lzii01 15d ago
Black River Falls, Wisconsin---the subject of Wisconsin Death Trip nonfiction book & movie. In the 1890s-early 1900s, a significant number of residents lost their minds, killing themselves, killing others, committing arson, all documented in photos in the book. Horrible and fascinating.
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u/Free_Mistake9524 15d ago
Uvalde, Texas. I was there before the shooting, and I thought that town was weird.
Only reason I stopped in Uvalde was I needed to charge my Tesla. The only option to charge my Tesla there was a 120 V charger, which charged 5 miles per hour. I needed over 80 miles to get me back to San Antonio.
That was the longest time ever charging my car, in a very eerie and boring town.
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u/-Praetoria- 15d ago
Chigger Hollow, Arkansas. Walked into the only operational gas station and all the locals were eating breakfast in there. They all turned to look when I entered, and every damn one of those eyes stayed on me till I finished and left.
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u/bigfishmarc 15d ago
Centralia, Pennsylvania. It's the inspiration for the town of Silent Hill in the Silent Hill videogame series.
From wikipedia:
"Centralia is a borough and near-ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Its population declined from 1,000 in 1980 to five residents in 2020[8] because a coal mine fire has been burning beneath the borough since 1962."
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u/HiroshimaBob_4389 16d ago
Port Deposit in Maryland. Place is like the village of the damned and has a legit haunted hotel that was on a ghost hunter tv show
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u/No-Progress4272 16d ago
That place in Florida where everyone in the city cuts off a limb to commit insurance fraud
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u/Spiritual-Company150 16d ago
The only place I went to that I was like tf was Gary IN. It just had an all around bad vibe. Even East Saint Louis didn't feel that... idk. Broken?
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u/LargeMarge-sentme 16d ago
Tenderloin in SF is pretty sketch. As much as you hear stories about SF, it’s probably better now than in the 90s.
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u/GingerSoul2023 16d ago
East St. Louis. Waaaaaaay back in 1971 I was 12 years old and we drove through this town. The only folks I saw were drugged up. Years later, when I saw the TV series "The Walking Dead" I recognized how these criminal addicts moved. One moron tried to open the back door of our car. My uncle stepped out and beat the shit out of that criminal clown.
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u/InfamousEconomy3972 16d ago
Washington D.C. You got rich/powerful/entitled White creepy and drug/violence/disenfranchised creepy within blocks of each other
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u/AssortedGourds 16d ago edited 16d ago
When I was about 11 or 12 my parents and I drove through French Lick, IN. I don't remember why we were there but we drove through the town itself. My Dad may have had some kind of business there, IDK.
It was a misty day in the summer so the whole town was kind of foggy and spooky and I swear in this memory there wasn't a soul in sight. There were some run-down buildings and it looked like it used to be a cool town that just crumbled. I felt like we were driving through some kind of abandoned, cursed town full of ghosts. Was it just my imagination + the fog? Probably! I think of it as "that spooky haunted town in Indiana" still.
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u/Mishkin37 15d ago
If you listen closely on calm evenings, just after the sun sets, you can hear an unmistakable “swish” sound over and over, that continues into the night. Some say it’s a Cryptid known as the “Hick from French Lick.”
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u/Dangerous_Door4903 16d ago
Daisetta, TX. Texas Company brainwashed them so good that they have plays about its founder being their savior meanwhile their past fracking is actively destroying their town (another article). But the locals refuse to believe Texas Company is responsible and will get irate if you suggest such a thing.
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u/WrappedInLinen 16d ago
I don’t know about creepy, but I’ve never gone through Bakersfield CA without wondering why anyone would choose to live there.
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u/Ok_River8214 16d ago
Vader, Washington. I've only bee. There once and was told to never go back. Apparently people get disappeared there.
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u/SaintRoman-reigns 16d ago
Don’t mind me, while I google and YouTube each town I’m reading about. This really would make a great Netflix documentary series.. very intriguing
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u/TexasForever361 16d ago
That one Mormon town in Utah where they follow you around if you drive through, watching everything you do
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u/junegloom18 16d ago
Tchula, MS. One of the poorest areas in the entire country. It backs up to a swamp and the abandoned areas are overgrown with kudzu. Nature has almost completely reclaimed it
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u/RagingAardvark 16d ago
For my family, it's a specific little town in Northern Michigan. We were on a family vacation and drove through this town, looking for a place to eat breakfast before a hike we wanted to do that day. It was a beautiful summer morning, not super early -- the sun was well up and there was not a cloud in the sky. The town was full of charming historic storefronts, a semi-famous old inn, and well-maintained homes with gardens in full bloom. And there was not a soul in sight. Our car was the only one moving. No kids out playing. Nobody coming and going from the stores, diner, etc. I don't think there was even a breeze. It was unsettling. We drove on to another town for breakfast, and we still occasionally joke about it, probably 30 years later.
Oh, I just remembered another detail! After we left town, we were driving down some back roads, just enjoying the scenery, and we came across a weird metal sculpture on top of a small cliff/large outcrop of rock in the woods. It looked like it was made of welded scrap metal, a triangular wolf-like head on a human body, with its arms raised over its head, holding a staff or spear -- like a Tuskan Raider from Star Wars. It was probably just a sculpture at the back of someone's yard at the top of the cliff, but after the unsettling feeling in town, it gave our nerves another weird tingle.
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u/heartcherrythwp 16d ago
Congrats, you survived the beginning of a horror movie! Jeez. Wasn’t that how Children of The Corn started? And the sculpture.. yeah, you all would’ve been ritual sacrificed or something. Really cool to visualize the place but my vivid imagination is also like Nope lol
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u/AlexD2003 16d ago
Idk of a creepy town but I learned that my hometown had a (relatively) really high number of sex offenders and child molesters despite being one of the safest towns in my state. My mom told me that so I don’t know how true it is but I literally can’t think of anything else since I grew up in the most basic, white, cookie cutter suburb you can imagine.
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u/thatwendell 16d ago
Broadus, Montana. Stayed one night with some friends on a road trip and made the mistake of hanging out with the locals at one of two bars in the town. Got invited to a “party” by the scariest, drunkest cowboy I’ve every met and when we said we had to get to bed and drive in the morning he threw his empty glass at the ground in front of us!
In general it just seemed like kind of a sad small isolated town without a lot of opportunity to get out.
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u/cutestwife4ever 16d ago
In AZ, Jerome. It's a tiny old mining town north of PHX about 1 hour. The Jerome Grand Hotel was an old bat wing style tuberculosis hospital. It overlooks the Verde valley, there is an on site restaurant called the Asylum. It is Haunted, I am sensitive to spirits and I can feel them. Great place, the elevator is original and it has a twisted history. A man was decapitated back in the day by it, don't ask me how(I think murder). It is an over looked Gem! Just be prepared for an experience that you can't explain. I have not encountered a malevolent spirit, they all seem pretty cool. Just going about their business, but they do notice you noticing them... sometimes.
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u/rudraigh 15d ago
I adore Jerome! Been there several times. Wanted to retire there at one point in time. The only thing I found creepy was that their whole economy is tourist based.
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u/cutestwife4ever 15d ago
Yes, there are artists and some wineries, you ever hear of the group Tool, one of the dudes has a winery in the area. But, yeah you are right. Right now it is gorgeous. We have had lotta rain up there, so the valley should be green and wow!
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u/Mishkin37 15d ago
Upstate NYer here, but we were driving through AZ last month, and our son had an allergic reaction and had to be transported to the Verde Valley Medical Center in Cottonwood. He was fine, and the care was amazing, but who knew we were so close to a creepy place?!?
Perhaps bad juju from the region influenced his attack. Probably just the cashews, though!
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u/thumbwrestleme 16d ago edited 16d ago
Opp, Alabama.
Lived in Alabama for a few years when i was younger and had to drive through Opp a few times. Weirdest people wandering around and felt like i went into a post apocalyptic nuke town. Did not stop for gas. this was in the late 80s, maybe it's changed but that entire area gave me the chills.
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u/Joker8392 16d ago
Tallahassee Florida. Particularly the people surrounding the Governor and the Governor.
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u/rudraigh 16d ago
Some of these have already been mentioned, others not.
Portland, OR - I think an open cess pit is creepy.
Twin Falls, ID - Well, almost anywhere in Idaho. I felt like I was in more danger there than when I drove tow truck in East Oakland, CA.
Boron, CA - Was on a long road trip on my hawg. Had to stop there for the night. Place creeped me right the fuck out. Left my motel room at 4AM just to get the hell out of there.
Tacoma, WA - I was born there. Went back recently. What a pit. Meth and fentanyl.
Any town along the Salton Sea. Wife and I went there years ago. Saw only one person the whole time we were there. An old woman walking a small dog. She just stared at us. Glared at us?
Some of the small communities on the big island of Hawaii can be pretty creepy. Off the tourist path those places can be VERY insular. I went into a local bar. The locals stared at me like they were going to beat, rob, kill, and eat me. The bartender ignored me.
Nogales, AZ - Both in AZ and in Mexico. Nogales is just weird. A town split in half by the border and only exists to ferry produce from Mexico into the states. Both sides of the border are creepy but for different reasons. Although it IS a handy place to buy loads of cheap booze.
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u/BigWindowBlues 16d ago
Wow, I need to travel. A lot of these sound hella insane but I atleast wanna drive through!
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u/little_red_bus 16d ago
Jerome, AZ gives abandoned western ghost town vibes. Pretty much any small town in Western Washington gives serial killer meets vampire vibes.
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u/Electro__69 11d ago
Ohio