‘I discovered an deserted amusement park on cursed floor – it gave me goosebumps’

This week, for her Terrifying Travels column, ‘Queen of Dark Tourism’ Brocarde visited an abandoned amusement park where she felt she’d stepped straight into Final Destination

It was 5am when I arrived on the banks of Lake Shawnee. Fog hung heavily in the air as mist rose from the still, lifeless water. A shiver ran down my spine as I made my way towards an abandoned school bus that looked as though it had driven straight onto the set of Final Destination .

There are many things that make Lake Shawnee so fascinating. On a visual level alone, it’s utterly captivating, especially for someone like me who loves to photograph haunting locations and appreciates the strange beauty of decay.

A rusting Ferris wheel rises from the wilderness that’s slowly reclaiming it. As I wandered around the lake, the first rays of sunlight began to creep through the clouds. It’s hard to imagine that this was once a thriving amusement park filled with laughter. Children swam in the lake, raced between the rides and enjoyed long summer days. When the park first opened in 1926, it featured swimming areas, cabins, concession stands, swings and family attractions.

The amusement park enjoyed several successful years, but by the 1950s tragedy had begun to take hold. A series of fatal accidents devastated the site, giving rise to local legends that the land was cursed and that something sinister had claimed it. The first widely reported tragedy occurred in the 1950’s. A young girl was playing on the swings when a delivery lorry reversing towards one of the concession stands struck her, killing her instantly.

Not long afterwards, another heartbreaking incident unfolded when a young boy drowned in the lake. I was told that his mother had dropped him off for a day of swimming before returning later that evening to collect him, only to discover he was nowhere to be found. As darkness fell, a frantic search began. At around 10pm, he was finally discovered at the bottom of the pool with his hand trapped in a drain.

Locals claim that three boys drowned in the pool over the years, and that six children lost their lives at the site in total – an alarmingly high number of fatalities for one amusement park. Eventually, in 1966, Lake Shawnee closed its gates. The park remained abandoned for decades until the 1980s, when a local man named Gaylord White bought the property. Having worked there in his youth, he dreamed of restoring it to its former glory.

As part of the restoration, he purchased the Ferris wheel that still stands today. Contrary to popular belief, nobody died on the Ferris wheel, as it wasn’t installed until after the fatal accidents. However, he also managed to locate a swing ride. In an eerie twist, its serial number matched the original swings that had stood on the site when the park first opened. The swings visitors see today are believed to be the very same ones on which the young girl lost her life.

Today, one of the swings is marked with a red ribbon. Visitors leave toys, trinkets and small offerings in her memory, and some hope the tributes will ward off unwanted paranormal activity. Many people claim they’ve witnessed her swing gently rocking back and forth on its own while every other seat remains perfectly still.

I have to admit, there’s something deeply unsettling about seeing abandoned amusement rides being swallowed by nature, covered in hundreds of forgotten toys. It feels like a miniature Chernobyl, minus the nuclear disaster.

Today, Lake Shawnee Amusement Park isn’t just a haunting place to explore – it’s become a hotspot for paranormal investigators.

The little girl isn’t believed to be the only spirit that remains. The nine-year-old boy who drowned is said to be the site’s unofficial caretaker. His apparition has reportedly been seen near the old blue ticket booth beside the pool. Visitors also claim he likes to attract attention by spinning a small white pinwheel, even on completely still days when there’s no breeze to explain the movement.

Gaylord White’s attempt to revive the park enjoyed only brief success. After just a few years, rising insurance costs and mounting overheads forced the attraction to close permanently once again.

It was after this closure that the story took an even darker turn.

As the White family began excavating parts of the land for future development, they unearthed bracelets, ancient tools and human bones. More than 3,000 Native American artefacts and remains, believed to belong to the Shawnee people, were reportedly discovered in mass burial sites across the property, many of them thought to be children.

Archaeologists from a local university were called in to investigate further. Their findings revealed that some of the earliest English settlers had also died on this land during violent frontier conflicts in the late 18th century.

Mitchell Clay and his wife, Phoebe, had settled on the site. In 1783, during conflict with the Shawnee, two of their children, Tabitha and Bartley, were killed there. Mitchell later tracked the group into what is now Ohio, where he found his third child, Ezekiel, who had also been killed. All three children were eventually buried on the property, and a memorial now marks the location.

These tragic chapters of history leave many people wondering whether an ancient curse still lingers over the land. Did the Shawnee place a curse upon it? Were the amusement park tragedies simply a terrible coincidence? Or did something darker object to an amusement park being built on top of a place filled with so much death?

Whatever the truth may be, one thing is certain: Lake Shawnee has an atmosphere unlike anywhere I’ve ever visited.

If you ever have the opportunity to visit, take a moment to stop, look around and reflect on the history beneath your feet. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching me. More than once, I found myself instinctively looking over my shoulder.