What Happened in Boston, Ohio, That Gave the Township Such a Scary Reputation?

No matter where you live, there's always a mythic, spooky spot located near your house that isn't too far of a drive away. If you're a resident of the Dirty Jersey, then you've heard about the devil monster lurking in the Pine Barrens, or the ghostly occurrences on Clinton Road. But every state has it's own reportedly spooky stuff going on with its own local flavor, and even though Ohio's drive-thru liquor stores are scary enough, what happened in Boston, Ohio is pretty darn frightening.

When it comes to spooky myths and actually confirmed events, you can take your pick of why the place in Boston Township, Ohio, received such an ominous name. Boston was first established in 1806 and is the oldest town in Summit County. For 168 years, it was a relatively quiet town that didn't make national headlines. That was, until 1974 when the National Park Service decided the township was perfect for their needs.

Those needs were the preservation of national forest lands. Cuyahoga National Park was established in the area and the NPS had full jurisdiction to buy up the properties of whoever they saw fit to do so. Many residents were unhappy about being forced to up and move away from their homes. The houses were quickly all boarded up and large "No Trespassing" signs were plastered over the Boston Township grounds.

Over the years people would, of course, ignore the signs and venture into the desolate town. They'd find messages drawn, scribbled, and carved into the houses. One such piece of graffiti read: "Now we know how the Indians felt."

There's something undeniably creepy about a "ghost town," and naturally Boston started becoming the home to several urban legends and spooky stories.

Another huge scandal that would occur some 11 years after the town was shut down would only help further those tales. The NPS had acquired the Krejci Dump in 1985 and several park rangers who patrolled the area would complain of falling ill. Some of the rangers then developed visible rashes all over their body, which spurred the need for an investigation and assessment of the area.

The results of various tests of the area were horrifying.

As it turns out, companies were illegally dumping tons of toxic waste in the area and it was deemed a "superfund site" as a result. The NPS, as of 2015 was still working on fully cleaning up Krejci and the true extent of the environmental damage that was inflicted on the land is still not known.

In addition to the real-life horrors of mass evacuations and toxic land poisoning, some urban legends not wholly rooted in reality or truth started becoming associated with the land. Like the fact that a Presbyterian church was founded by Satanists. In truth, the church was just a regular ole' house of worship that got broken into by some vandals who decided to decorate the place with occult imagery.

Upside down crosses, scary graffiti and similarly scary stuff were painted on the walls of the church. There's also an abandoned bus in the area that's thought to be home to a bunch of ghosts distraught over the fact that they had to leave town in such a hurry. The Krejci dump scandal also birthed the rumors of "mutants" roaming the area like something out of The Hills Have Eyes.

There's also talk of mutant pythons slithering around the grounds, and it's become such an iconic fixture of the area that the residents of the surrounding area still celebrate "Python Day." 

It's easy to separate the scary fact from fiction in Helltown, Ohio. The most alarming fact is that the truth is way freakier than the legends of the condemned grounds.