Professional Weirdo Podcast

Where I research strange stories and tell them to you. Because, let’s face it, I’m gonna research this anyway and blurt it to someone, might as well be a willing audience. Some of these stories might get dark, morbid, murdery…. so listener discretion is advised.

All Episodes

Professional Weirdo Podcast

Episode 8 - Nobody's Home

July 19, 2025 • Anonymous Narrator • Season 1 • Episode 8

Let's go exploring! I'll take you on a tour of some abandoned towns, where all residents have left, or entry is restricted.

Songs:

Ghost Town by The Specials
Cold Reactor by Everything Everything
Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth by the Primitive Radio Gods
The Pit by Mouse Rat

Sources:

Sound mixing performed by Brother Jay from The Rule of Scary podcast - check that out if you’re a horror movie fan! And hey! Thank you for listening to my stories. Keep it weird out there.

To find song recommendations for this podcast, check out the Spotify Professional Weird playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jIkaamOZlCwtd2peUk9lF?si=0238d524a374492d

Email me at professionalweirdopodcast@gmail.com

Hey weirdos. I have a question for you. Have you ever driven by an old, abandoned house and just felt compelled to, trespass? I’m not talking about breaking a window or stealing anything. Just walking around in the quiet spaces, discovering the rooms and old furniture. I’m not saying I’ve ever done it. I might have found a listing on Zillow of a giant old house that had been sitting empty since the 70’s, obsessed over the photos, realized it was in a neighborhood near where I grocery shop, driven there at night - just to peek in the windows! - and then got a little nervous about how many houses where nearby, full of what I’m sure were noisy neighbors watching out their windows. And okay, there was one time I passed a couple of No Trespassing signs on the way to an abandoned women’s prison, overgrown with nature, but then turned back. It was about the time people could pretty affordably purchase deer cameras and I realized my curiosity might be getting the best of me. But I continue to hear the call, slowing down as I drive past those quiet old empty houses. Filling my social media feeds with channels that feature those types of old-charm houses up for sale, or watching others boldly trespass into abandoned places. How about we do some exploring together? I promise, we won’t need bail money.

This is episode 8 - Nobody’s Home

Welcome weirdos, to the Professional Weirdo podcast, where I research strange stories and tell them to you. Because, let’s face it, I’m gonna research this anyway and blurt it to someone, might as well be a willing audience. Some of these stories might get dark, morbid, murdery…. so listener discretion is advised.

Maybe better than an abandoned house is a closed town - where entry is restricted or all residents have left for some reason or another. Empty roads, quiet houses, boarded up store fronts. Can you picture it? The squeak of an empty swing on a playground, blowing in the wind. A car sitting on flat tires, with an old Aerosmith tape case in the passenger seat. A crooked front porch. Maybe vines growing up on the inside of the windows. We step inside and what do we find? Probably a lot of mouse poop. Gross. Let’s not think about that. What else? An outdated calendar on the wall, with handwriting noting someone’s birthday. An old prom dress hanging in the closet?! Spiders! Ew - no, not thinking about that. An old landline phone, long silent. Because there are only creaks and drafting winds in here. And echos. Echos will be our rating system this time around. 1 out of 5 echos. (Not my most creative, but I feel like it’s that or spiders, so we’re going with echos).

Singapore, Michigan was a town built on high hopes and bad luck. It was founded by Oshea Wilder in 1836 with a wish for it to rival Milwaukee and Chicago. It was built along Lake Michigan and got off to a good start, with the distinction of having Michigan’s first schoolhouse. The first streak of bad luck came from wild cat banking. That was a type of bank that ran from 1836 to 1865, before there were national standards set for banking. These banks were opened in remote locations and would issue a type of paper currency to people as a form of bearer note, to be redeemed only by that bank at a later date. The issue was the banks based this on their own credit, so it was possible you could redeem your bearer note later for gold or silver coins. Or, for jack squat if the bank didn’t have any money. Without regulations, this system made people vulnerable to banks closing, or just being scammed out of their real money in exchange for potentially a worthless piece of paper. Two of these banks set up shop in Singapore, Michigan and issued banknotes beyond their ability to cover. In 1838, two years into the town being started, there had been over $50,000 in notes issued. When some state inspectors checked in and demanded they show enough credit to cover the notes, they failed. And then were dissolved. Leaving a lot of people at a loss. 4 years later, Singapore was hit by a blizzard that lasted for 40 days, which left the town running out of food. Fortunately for them, but still kinda dark, a ship called the Milwaukie crashed, and barrels of flour washed up on the shores of Singapore, providing enough to keep the town going until the storm blew through. That was enough for Oshea Wilder, the town’s founder. He wasn’t seeing his town growing like Chicago or Milwaukee and left, selling his interests in the town to James Carter, but he only lasted in the town for 2 years before selling out to his brother and an associate. That brought another first for Singapore - the new owners built the first 3-masted schooner on Lake Michigan which carried lumber to Chicago. For the next 20 years, Singapore thrived. Bad times for other towns and cities though, as fires hit 4 large towns, including Chicago. Singapore busily supplied the lumber for rebuilding, but by doing so had stripped the area surrounding Singapore of their forests. Exposed to the winds of Lake Michigan, sands began to erode the town into ruins and bury it. It only took four years for the town to be abandoned and completely covered in sand. Started in 1836, and covered in sand by 1875. That is the story of Singapore, Michigan. 3 out of 5 echos.

The backbone of Treece, Kansas and towns Picher and Cardin in Oklahoma was mining. They were all within a few miles of one another - Treece and Picher being 1 mile away, despite having a state line between them. At the height of their day, they hit about 20,000 in population and were producing $20 billion (yes, billion with a B) dollars of ore during WW1 and WW2. The mines supplied lead, iron ore, and zinc, but eventually, production slowed down, causing the population in the area to start to decline. In 1981 the Environmental Protection Agency determined the area had been contaminated by the mining and promised a clean up. Residents reported that children who swam in the local Tar Creek ended up with what appeared as a bad sunburn all over their bodies, but it was actually chemical burns. The impacted area was large enough that the EPA had to divide it into Superfund sites, analyzing the different areas and prioritizing clean-up for each. But help took a long time and people were leaving. In 2000, Treece only had 149 people. That was 59 households, including 37 families still there. In 2006 in Picher, it was found that the mining under the city had inadequate support and many of the city’s structures were in immediate danger of caving in. Add a side of healthy contamination and with that the EPA ordered a mandatory evacuation and residents started receiving buy-out payments for relocation. For Treece, action took a little longer. Understandably residents there were pretty nervous, so demanded a buy-out as well. For this area it was determined that a clean-up would solve the issue and an evacuation wasn’t necessary.

In 2008, 2 years after the evacuation, DESPITE the evacuation, Picher still had people there when it was hit by an F4 tornado. 6 people were killed and 150 injured. Given that the city was already slowly being evacuated, no aid went toward rebuilding homes that had been destroyed by the tornado, so relocation resumed. 3 years after the mandatory evacuation in Picher, the final remaining relocation checks arrived in 2009. The last day there, remaining residents gathered in the school auditorium to say goodbye to the town.

It was also 2009 when Treece was authorized for a buy-out so residents could relocate, but residents had until 2010 to apply for their buyout. I gotta say, after all of that, I think being required to file paperwork would just be the cherry on top to really pissing me off. But despite Treece being deemed uninhabitable and finally getting a chance for buy out, when the town was disincorporated in 2012 one couple remained - Timothy and Delia Busby. Living in the town where chat piles and leftover mile tailings still existed. Some chat piles were up to 200 ft, or 61 m tall. The dust blowing off of them was measured to have enough metal to make blood-lead levels in young children 3x higher than the national average.

We haven’t talked about Cardin, OK yet. Also founded as a mining town in 1913, it was part of the federal buy-out due to the threat to residents’ health from contamination and risk of the buildings caving. The post office as the last business and it closed in 2009. Despite that, the last family in Cardin didn’t receive their final buy-out check until 2010, when they also left the town.

Over in Picher, now in 2015, the Picher Mining Field Museum was burned down due to arson. Also in 2015, Gary Linderman, owner of the Ole Miners Pharmacy, and a man who had vowed to stay as long as there was anyone left in the town who needed him, died at 60 of a sudden illness.

In Treece a year later, Timothy Busby, one of the last 2 residents there, died at 54.

And before we also depart this cluster of abandoned mining towns, I should mention that 2 miles south of Picher was once a town called Douthat, OK, whose post office was established in 1917. It was determined to also be contaminated and is now abandoned.

What a sad mess. 1 out of 5 echos.

Clayton Mark was a big thinker. It made him successful in the steel business. He used his big thinking to dream of a town that could support his workers at the Mark Manufacturing Company. He asked the architect who had designed his estate, Howard Van Doren Shaw, to design a community - urban planning as we call it nowadays. This community would be for people who worked at his company, and the town would be named Marktown. (Okay, so Clayton Mark’s big thinking didn’t apply when naming his company or town I guess). The town’s design was so unique, it was listed in Ripley’s Believe it or Not and it eventually got listed as one of the seven wonders of the world. Wait - checking notes… Correction - one of the seven wonders of Northwest Indiana. The design had retail occupying lower floors, with resident apartments on the 2nd floors. streets were reserved for walking, with cars being parked on sidewalks. Construction began on the original design and people started to occupy the spaces, but building out the full community was only 10% complete when it was halted after WWI and Mark Manufacturing Company was sold. East Chicago kept growing, with industrial growth spreading and eventually wrapping around Marktown, leaving residents surrounded by one of the densest industrial complexes in the world. To protect it, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. An attempt was made in 2008 to revitalize the unique community and as of 2011 all the original homes were still there. But as these things go, it was determined that the encroaching industry was causing a concerning amount of air pollution and the homes were evacuated. BP bought the buildings and tore them all down. But there are many photos of the buildings online for the curious. 3 out of 5 echos.

Seems to be a trend - building a community around a company. The Pittsburgh Limestone Company tried the same thing when they wanted to shorten their workers commute to their limestone mines near buffalo creek. Homes were built in the 1910s and 20s. And the name of the town sounds quaint enough. Yellow Dog Town. But you see, a contract by workers to promise their company that they won’t form a union is called a yellow dog contract. So there’s some passive aggressive subtext happening for those moving to Yellow Dog Town. Keeping on that theme was the large manager’s house that sat upon a tall hill. It’s a hierarchy you can’t clock out from. In the 1950s the limestone mines closed, and that’s when the town started to empty. But it took a long time for this town to become abandoned. By the early 2000s it was almost unoccupied , but many of the buildings were in rough shape. The whole town was purchased privately, and has been sold again, with attempts to maintain the buildings and bring them back into a livable state. Not entirely abandoned, as farm animals are there and you can visit the village for a tour by appointment. And not only tours - you can book hiking, camping, events like weddings or company picnics, paranormal investigations, or attend one of their open house events. If you happen to go, say hi to Aloosh, the town’s mascot and celebrity sheep - a runt abandoned by his mother, but then properly spoiled by owners and visitors alike. 4 out of 5 echos. .

At the western end of Long Island Sound in NY is an island that measures about 1 mile long by .33 miles wide. It’s called Hart Island. It was originally occupied by the See-wah-noy Siwanoy tribe, but later purchased from them by a physician. It passed hands many times through many families, and it’s said that in the early 19th century bare-knuckle boxing took place there, drawing thousands of spectators. Its first public use was by the military as a training ground in 1864, and since then it seems that it’s tried its absolute best to hit all the prerequisites for a properly haunted place. It’s been the sight of a Union Civil War prison camp, a psychiatric institution, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a boys’ reformatory and workhouse, and a jail, among other things. The last inhabited structures were abandoned in 1977 and it’s one remaining purpose is a potter’s field, where the city buries the unclaimed dead and uses it for crisis mass graves, like the 1918 flu, the AIDS epidemic, and more recently, COVID-19 deaths. The first person buried by the City was 24-year old Louisa Van Slake in 1869. It’s estimated that more than one million people are buried there. You may be asking how you bury one million people on an island that’s 1 mile by .33 miles? The answer would be, in trenches. Adults are stacked in sections, measuring 3 coffins deep in twenty rows. Each box is labeled with an identification number, the person’s age, ethnicity, and the place where the body was found. Civilian contractors started doing the burials in 2020, but before that inmates from Ryikers Island were paid 50 cents an hour to bury the bodies. An average of 72 disinterments happen per year when relatives have adults identified through DNA, photos, or fingerprints. For this reason, adult coffins are staggered to allow for easier removal.

In 1994 artist Melissa Hunt started the Hart Island Project. Their aim is to help families find any loved ones buried on the island by providing burial records on their website. They provide an interactive map that shows the location of graves through GPS, but also allows people to upload meaningful items to a deceased person’s profile, like photos, favorite songs, stories, or videos. In addition, they pushed for reforms that open the island monthly to the public, and allow private graveside visits by appointment. 4 out of 5 echos.

While we’re in NY, let’s drift on over to Plum Island. If this sounds familiar, then you may be a fan of Silence of the Lambs. Clarice makes a fake deal with Dr. Lecter. According to Clarice’s deal, for his cooperation in helping catch Buffalo Bill, Lecter gets transferred out of his basement cell and transferred to a VA hospital, but as a bonus, he gets one week out of the year to go to Plum Island. Where every day he can walk on the beach and swim in the ocean. Why would anyone allow Hannibal Lector on this island? Because it’s already heavily restricted. Let’s get into it.

It’s off the coast of Long Island, about 3 miles long and 1 mile at its widest point. It’s name is from the beach plums that grow along the shores, but the island was originally called man-i-2-wand “Manittuwond” by the Native American Pee-kwaat Pequot nation. In 1659 the son of the governor of Connecticut purchased the island from the local Native American chieftain of Long Island for a coat, a barrel of biscuits, and 100 fishhooks. It passed over the years through more than 20 families, eventually becoming the property of the US government and thus ending people living on the island.

It’s the location for a former US military installation called Fort Terry, which was activated as an anti-submarine base during WW2. Later, the United States Department of Agriculture set up the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in 1954. The center performs research on animal pathogens as a way to protect the national food supply, and access to the island is heavily restricted because of this. Over time, all the buildings that were a testament to the homes that had once been there shifted from abandoned, to ruins, to gone.

And the abandonment of this place as a town may have a happy ending, depending on how you look at it. despite being a place that studies contagious animal diseases, the isolation of the island makes it a refuge flourishing with wildlife. As Clarice said in Silence of the Lambs - terns nest there. The roseate terns are a federally endangered species, and common terns are a threatened species, but the island provides a protected place for them to dwell. It’s the location of the few remaining seagrass meadows in Long Island Sound, as well as a place for seals as they rest on their way back and forth to the arctic. It holds 228 bird species and is a haven for Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles and Atlantic sturgeon. Given that it’s surrounded by such a populated area, this isolated oasis has become a critical location for nature to thrive, undisturbed.

And there’s one last thing about Plum Island that I am so excited to tell you. The island holds the Plum Island Lighthouse which marks the entrance to Long Island Sound, a place with strong tidal currents. And for an area dangerous enough to warrant a lighthouse, it has an absolutely delightful name - Plum Gut. Let’s review - there is a lighthouse. to warn you away. from the dangers of… Plum Gut. 5 out of 5 echos!

Technically this next town may not be totally abandoned. As of 2020 there were 5 residents remaining. The area we’re talking about of course started off being occupied by Native Americans, but was purchased? by colonial agents and then changed hands a few times, developing a small population. In 1832 a tavern was built in the area called Bull’s Head Tavern, and hence, the town was then called Bull’s Head. Then 10 years later the Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company came in and bought the land. A village was built up around the mining industry and the name was changed to Centreville, later being changed to Centralia, Pennsylvania. The railroad was built through the area in 1854, and now we’re cooking. (That’s a little foreshadowing there)

This village was crazy for mining. In 1856 they opened the Locust Run Mine, the Coal Ridge Mine, 4 years later the Hazeldell Colliery Mine.Then the Centralia Mine 2 years after that. Then a year later the Continental Mine. Many of the men and children who worked in mines were facing hazardous work for low pay. Deaths and injuries happened regularly, with little being done by the mining companies to improve the situation. And among the miners in Centralia were Irish immigrants, who brought with them from Ireland the activism of the Molly Maguires, a secret society that wasn’t opposed to conflict to get their voices heard. Centralia’s town founder was allegedly murdered in his buggy by Mollies. Other reports of arson and murder in the town were blamed on them as well. And as legend tells, the first priest to live in Centrailia, Father Daniel Ignatius McDermott, was assaulted by members of the Maguires. In response he cursed the town, saying the Catholic Church there would some day be the only building left.

At its peak in 1890, the town had a population of 2,761 residents. It had a post office, a bank, 14 general and grocery stores, two theaters, 5 hotels, seven churches, and 27 saloons. When WW1 hit, many men left the mines to enlist. In 1929 Wall Street crashed and the mining company had to close 5 of their mines near the town. A thing to note about mining - to support the tunnels, pillars of coal are left. But bootleg miners illegally entering closed mines found these pillars to be easy-mining, and would do something called “pillar-robbing.” As a result, some areas of the mines collapsed without these supports.

Let’s skip to the 1962 in Centralia, when the mining companies had closed the underground mines and left. Outside of town there was an abandoned strip-mine pit that had been used as the town’s landfill. The town hired 5 volunteer fire fighters to clean up the landfill. Previously, but importantly, the landfill had been in a different location, and the method for cleaning up was to set the dump on fire, and control it while it burned down the trash, then extinguish it. This year, the fire wasn’t fully extinguished, and the layer of fire-resistant clay that was required by law to be a barrier for each layer of the landfill was not there. This led to fire entering an unsealed opening in the strip-mine pit and igniting the underground coal seam. Some say it wasn’t from the clean up efforts, but rather a trash hauler had dumped hot ash or coal into the open trash pit and the first fighters were there to put the dump fire out. Regardless, the layer of clay wasn’t there and fire entered the tunnels. But this is significant, so why would the cause of this be disputed? Because the significance wasn’t truly understood for another 17 years. That’s when the mayor, who also owned a local gas station, realized that the dip stick he used to measure fuel levels in his underground tank came back hot to the touch. He wrapped a string around a thermometer and sent it down into the gasoline. It came back up reading 172 degrees F, or 77.8 degrees C.

People understood there was a fire burning in the tunnels. But they disagreed on how much risk it caused. 3 years later the governor and a US representative were visiting the town to assess the situation and it was during that time when 12-year old Todd Domboski was playing in his grandmother’s backyard when suddenly a sinkhole 4 ft wide and 150 ft deep (that’s 1.2 m wide by 46 m deep) opened up under his feet. Fortunately he was able to grab onto a tree root and his cousin pulled him out of the hole. Air coming out of the sinkhole had lethal amounts of carbon monoxide. 2 years later relocation efforts were approved and nearly all residents moved out. 7 years later in 1990 there were 63 residents still living in the town. 2 years after that the governor invoked eminent domain and all remaining buildings were condemned. Some residents insisted on staying and as of 202 there were 5 left there. Despite the eminent domain claiming their properties, it was agreed they could receive the compensation for their homes, and stay until their deaths, when their properties would belong to the government.

Signs around the area warn of the underground fire, but cracks in the ground, as well as smoke and steam communicate the danger of sink holes and carbon monoxide as well. A portion of Pennsylvania Route 61 in the area was closed because of the cracking of the pavement. Open to foot traffic, people covered the pavement in grafitti over the years until it was called Graffiti Highway. In April of 2020, dirt was used to cover the closed road to keep people from coming in to leave their mark on the pavement.

It’s estimated the underground fire will burn for 250 more years. 5 out of 5 echosstanding

There once was a town called Times Beach in Missouri. It was 17 miles southwest of St. Louis with a population over 2000 people, but was closed, and evacuated in 1983. Settle in for a wild tale of how this all happened. September

In the 1960s in Verona, there was a facility owned by the Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company or NEPACCO. It was owned by the same company that produced Agent Orange, used in the Vietnam War. NEPACCO created an antibacterial agent used in soap, toothpaste, and other household disinfectants. Doesn’t sound too scary. But the process of making this cleaning agent created an extremely toxic compound. This created an issue for NEPACCO: what do they do with this waste, called “still bottoms.” It was a thick, oily residue of concentrated dioxin. They started down the proper path, which was sending it all the way to Louisiana, where there was a waste facility that would incinerate toxic waste list this. But that was super expensive. To save a buck, NEPACCO switched their contract to a different company called the Independent Petrochemical Corporation, or IPC. IPC billed NEPACCO $3000 per load to take the still bottoms. But IPC was a chemical supplier company - emphasis on supplier. They didn’t have experience with waste disposal. So they offloaded the job, and made a pretty profit, when they paid a subcontractor only $125 per load of still bottoms. No need to skip back for those numbers - yes, IPC took in $3000 per load, and paid the sub only $125 per load to take it off their hands. I guess that’s enough profit to pay away the deep, foreboding worry most people might have about how that toxic waste is going to be stored or disposed of.

The subcontractor was Russell Martin Bliss, who ran a small, local waste oil business. In 1971 Bliss collected nearly 18,500 gallons of the stuff, which they took to their storage facility and mixed into some of their tanks already storing used motor oil. Later, this contaminated oil was sold to a fuel company in Illinois, and to a refining company in Overland, Missouri. And now things get pretty wild, and very, very stupid. In addition to storing used oil (and other stuff that he apparently didn’t know all that much about and was paid terribly to store), Bliss owned a horse arena and farm. Dust can become a problem with arenas, so to combat that he would spray the ground with waste oils. Visitors to his horse arena were amazed at how one application could hold the dust down for months and then offered to pay him to do the same for their properties.

Like Shenandoah Stables, who paid Bliss $150 in May of 1971 to spray their indoor arena. He really laid it on thick, spraying 2000 gallons of waste oil. It didn’t take long for people to think something was wrong. First there was the pungent, burning odor. Then after a few days, birds living in the rafters of the barns began to drop dead. Then the horses started losing their hair and developing sores. The owners complained to Bliss, but he denied any issues, saying it was just used motor oil. They weren’t convinced and paid to have the top 6 inches of soil removed, which was dumped in a landfill. Later, still seeing problems, they paid for another 12 inches of soil to be removed but it didn’t seem to work. Horses became ill and a few months in 62 horses had died, or become so sick they had to be euthanized. The owners, and their two daughters also started to become sick.

But while they were fighting that battle, Bliss was still at work. Only a month after he had sprayed Shenandoah Stables, he was spraying Timberline Stables near Jefferson City, MO where 12 horses later died. Children who had been exposed to the arena there started developing a skin condition related to dioxin poisoning. Like the owners of the first stable, it was suspected that the sprayed oil was to blame so the top layer of soil removed.

Only a few months later, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention became aware of what was happening at Shenandoah Stables and did a complete inspection, including collecting human and animal blood samples and soil samples. Some of the soil samples showed items that weren’t great - some PCBs and chlorinated insecticides - but they didn’t see anything that could be the reason for the illnesses and animal deaths that were happening. Testing continued.

But Bliss is busy, and had sprayed a 3rd stable near St. Louis. Like the others, they experienced similar issues and in 1973 (2 years after the first application) they hired a road-grading contractor to removed the soil. But h didn’t take it to a landfill, instead dumping it on a property he owned, where a man named Harold Minker lived nearby.

And Bliss - like the Energizer Bunny this guy. How many dead horses until you pause and reflect? The town of Times Beach hired him in 1972 to oil 23 miles of dirt roads. Over the next four years he sprayed approximately 160,000 gallons of waste oil across Times Beach.

But in 1973, the CDC were finally able to detect something big. (Deep breath if you are an animal lover and hate the thought of animal testing - this next bit is harsh and you may want to skip). To test for trace amounts of crude trichlorophenol contaminants, the substance would be applied to the inner ear of rabbits. Blistering in the ear meant those contaminants were present. However, while performing this test with the Shenandoah Stables samples, some of the rabbits died unexpectedly. And I’m guessing that’s how you get to jump to the front of the queue for any and all testing available at the CDC.

IIt wasn’t until July of 1974 that the CDC got all their answers, specifically showing the presence of dioxin. There wasn’t a lot of understanding about how it would impact humans, but seeing what was happening to the animals, the CDC was keen to determine any other places that might have this contaminated soil. The owners of the Stable directed them to Bliss. Bliss told the CDC he had no clue how dioxin would have gotten into his used motor oil. Luckily, dioxin is not a common byproduct. Because there are only a few specific industries that might be generating dioxin, NEPACCO was quickly suspected. By this time, NEPACCO had gone out of business and was now owned by Syntax Agribusiness. Why would NEPACCO have gone out of business you ask? Because the Food and Drug Administration had put a ban on products using hexachlorophene due to deaths from a baby powder that contained it (I know, I know, what is happening?! Another toxic thing happening? And In baby powder? There are rabbit holes here, and I’m tempted to follow them, but I think these rabbit holes are full of toxic sludge. And honestly doing a whole episode on NEPACCO might suck a few years of life out of me, no one really wants to listen to that, and so we’re gonna just wish anyone responsible for this BS to have gotten fully what they deserved and keep going. there’s a story of a town coming up later that was closed because, maybe, Bigfoot? So hang with me in Times Beach for just a bit longer… )

When the CDC inspected an old NEPACCO facility they found a storage tank with still bottoms that had such high concentrations of dioxin, it would eventually take 7 years to properly dispose of it. The CDC advised those at Bliss’ spray locations to limit their contact with the soil. Well, sure. We all feel good about that, right? They also sent a report to the Environmental Protection Agency saying they recommended a clean-up with the removal and burial of all the contaminated soil. And they said the half-life of dioxin was one year. (Half-life is a way to measure the value, or decay, and here it’s basically indicating how long the substance will have an impact). Also in this case, they were wrong. The half-life of dioxin is actually 7-11 years. But based on the report, the EPA decided the recommended cleanup wasn’t required. This was 1975, more than 4 years after the first spray, so why bother?

Then in 1979, the EPA had to take another look. A former NEPACOO employee let them know that the company had paid a resident $150 to bury toxic waste on his farm, where the EPA would later find 90 leaking drums, with 11 of them containing still bottoms of dioxin in high concentrations.

There are a lot of timelines going here, so let’s review.

in 1971 Bliss sprayed Shenandoah Stables.
From 1972 until 1976 he had sprayed the roads across Times Beach.
In 1974 the CDC saw the rabbits die and expanded testing and discovered the dioxin. (Just a note - Bliss is still spraying the roads in Times Beach).
In 1975 the CDC sent the report to the EPA with their findings and recommendation. They decide to do nothing. And Bliss sprays the roads in Times Beach one more year.
Everything just hangs out until 1979 when the old NEPACCO employee tells them about the drums.

That brings us to early summer 1982, when the EPA revisited the 3 stables, along with Harold Minker who lived near where the road-grading contractor had dumped the soil he’d removed from the 3rd stable, and another property where soil had been dumped. In their measurements, the dioxin hadn’t decreased concentrations since the last test by the CDC, showing that in 11 years, the dioxin was NOT exhibiting a half-life of 1 year. They told the owners of the stables to close temporarily and asked the national EPA office to begin operations to remove the contamination. Unbelievably, it gets worse. EPA headquarters decided they would collect and test more samples themselves before taking any action. A couple of years after this, a leaked EPA document came out that listed a total of 14 confirmed and 41 possibly contaminated sites in the state of Missouri. It was through this leaked document - coming out 10 years after the roads had first been sprayed - that the town of Times Beach learned about what had been applied to their roads. And it was here that the dioxin contamination got media attention, with the town of Times Beach being at the center of it.

While having known about Times Beach through their investigation into Bliss, yet not doing anything there, the EPA had some catching up to do and the media was watching. Their soil sample collection wrapped up on Dec. 3, 1982. And then literally the next day, unbelievably, more unbelievably, unbelievabliER, things got worse. Because that next day the Mermamec River rose over 14 feet above flood stage - the worst flood in Times Beach’s history. Residents were evacuated because of the flooding and by the time it was over, based on the results of their soil sample collection, the EPA determined the dioxin concentrations across the town’s network of roads were too high for habitation. President Ronald Reagan created the Times Beach Dioxin Task Force. It was announced that the cost to buy out the 800 residential properties and 30 businesses of Times Beach would come to $36.7 million. All 2000 residents were moved out by 1985 and the town was disincorporated. Anyone driving the raised highway and looking down into the valley at Times Beach was looking at a ghost town.

Now for clean-up. Let’s imagine we’ve spilled our legos all over the floor, but the Lego bucket is in another room. Do we carry the legos to the bucket a room away? No - we bring the bucket to the mess. And that’s what happened. Time’s Beach had the unwanted honor of holding over 50% of the dioxin in the entire state of Missouri. And, hey, no more residents there to contaminate, so Times Beach became the location for a new incinerator. Its construction was completed in 1995 and for the next 2 years it burned more than 265,000 tons of dioxin-contaminated materials from across Missouri, much of it from right there in the town. The homes, businesses, and even the water tower of Times Beach was incinerated. The only thing left was a road house. I don’t know why, but that building was allowed to stay. After incineration, the remains were pushed into one spot and buried. People in the area call it the “town mound.” At that time it was determined the clean-up of dioxin in the state was completed to the tune of $200 million.

That’s the literal clean-up, but there’s more figurative cleaning to do. The incident spurred a flurry of laws to guard from repeats of this incident. NEPACCO and its officers were sued by the federal government and were forced to repay the government for the cleanup of the farm where the 90 drums of waste had been buried. Bliss claimed he had no knowledge that dioxin was in the chemical waste he had been given to store. However, there were over 14,000 citizens’ suits brought against NEPACOO, Syntax Agribusiness, IPC, and yes, they sued Bliss as well. The owners of Shenandoah Stables settled with Bliss for $10,000, and with IPC for $100,000, and then later settled for $65,000 from NEPACCO. IPC also paid $1 million to each of the daughters who grew up on Shenandoah Stables.

The land where Times Beach once stood, now deemed safe, is a state park. Visitors can go to the town mound. And the only building to survive, the former roadhouse, has been turned into the visitor center.

Seems like a nice close for that story, right? Are we done here? With the evil corporations and shady contracting and toxic waste and dead birds falling from the rafters and blistering bunny ears and flooding and horse death…. That’s enough, right? Just, one more thing. In May of 1991 the director of the CDC’s Center for Environmental Health said that despite the animal deaths, studies that included the residents of Times Beach and others that had been exposed to dioxin, showed that there weren’t really any adverse health outcomes from dioxin exposure. He went on to say that he no longer believed the evacuation of Times Beach was necessary. Sir. They incinerated the water tower and now you say this?

I want to be mad about that, but honestly, would you have stayed after what happened with the animals? Not me. And after all this, would you have trusted any of these jokers if they had told you at the time that it was actually safe to stay? Hell no. 5 out of 5 echos.

Why is this next town abandoned? Well, it’s called Helltown for one thing. Originally known as Boston, or Boston Mills, in Ohio, This town has EVERYTHING! Mutants, haunted cemeteries, serial killers, chemical spills, a crybaby bridge, human sacrifice, mutant pythons, scary school buses, satan worshippers, A PAPER FACTORY!

Some of that might just be folklore. Maybe a lot of that. But I can verify, the paper factory was REAL.

Boston started in 1806, making it the oldest village in the county. They also had the first mill in the county. The town grew over the years and things were going pretty well. The paper factory (I told you it was real) provided a solid means of employment to the town. But to make paper, you need lumber. And what have we learned when you cut down the lumber around your area for decades? You’re gonna get into trouble. unlike that earlier story, Boston didn’t get buried in sand. In the late 1960’s environmentalists started to protest the deforestation. In 1974, President Gerald Ford signed a bill saying the National Park Service could be permitted to buy properties for the establishment of national parks and the National Park Service picked Boston to be the new Kai-uh-ho-guh Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Buyouts began, with property owners selling to the National Park Service. Sometimes, whole streets were purchased. As homes were taken over, they were boarded up with signs saying “Prohibited Access, Government Property” and over time, some houses were being demolished. (Side note, I never thought I’d be telling a story where the National Park Service was the bad guy in the story, and would just like to say this was the 70’s - things were wild then. Shag carpet and disco were happening. It was a topsy-turvy time.) So here we are, the National Park Service was being a bit of a bully and people who were trying to remain in their homes were feeling like they didn’t have a choice anymore. And then it got a little worse. No, not the mutant python I mentioned earlier. Not yet. Something even scarier. Bureaucratic delays. The process of buying and demolishing the homes to build the park stalled. Empty buildings sat and deteriorated. Trespassing and vandalism started. Graffiti marked the walls of empty homes. Then fire departments started using some of the buildings as fire practice, so some of these homes were burned out.

Rumors started that the nearby power plant was releasing chemicals that was poisoning the area. Then the National Park Service acquired the cra-chee Krejci Dump in 1985. After investigation, yep, you guessed it, the dump was polluted from improper disposal of toxic chemicals. It would end up taking 30 years for the site to be cleaned up. But what can happen when all that toxic waste sits around for decades? That sounds like an origin story to me. And that’s where baby cryptids come from. In this case, people started talking about a mutant python called the Peninsula Python, said to be 30 ft, or 10 m, long. Stories are also told about a mutant hiker who was exposed to the chemicals and lives in the woods as an outcast. That’s not likely to be true, but when park rangers worked in the area, they did get sick and then something horrible happened. they developed rashes. I can’t back this up, but I don’t think they took to the woods as outcasts. Probably just got some ointment and returned to society. But a rash from pollutants is still pretty bad.

Where there are old, abandoned towns, there are old, abandoned cemeteries. And with a back drop of a deserted town getting spookier as each day goes by, the two cemeteries in Boston inspire several ghost stories. And one of the graveyards is called the Mother of Sorrows, come on! It’s set in the forest and overgrown. And that’s probably what’s inspiring the stories of Satan worshippers and human sacrifice in the woods. If the 70’s mania brought us bell bottoms and bean bags, the 80’s brought us jelly shoes and Satanic Panic, so you know in a place looking like Boston, now called Helltown, everyone is going to expect Satanists in the woods. Or in the Presbyterian Church. Because that church had, as a very unfortunate architectural detail, what appears to be upside down crosses on the trim of the building.

So what about the haunted school bus? The broken down bus was seen with what appeared to be people moving around inside. Because there were people moving around inside. Before the town was entirely abandoned, a family was using the school bus as a temporary living space while their home was being repaired. I’m guessing the many stories about serial killers living in the basement of the church, or a cabin near Mother of Sorrows graveyard, or other locations in Helltown, have similar origins - people seeking living situations while the town decayed around them.

And that crybaby bridge? There is a bridge in Helltown, with legends saying you can hear a baby crying there, because of some unspeakable tragedy that happened. But wikipedia has 6 locations as examples on its “crybaby bridge” page, and none of those six are Helltown. It’s a common urban legend and in Helltown there’s no proof of an actual tragedy with a child, as the story claims.

Now that I’ve sucked all the fun out of the legends around Helltown, I have one last disappointing update. All abandoned buildings in Helltown have been torn down. Except for the Boston Cemetery, there’s nothing there to see, except, finally, a national park. 5 out of 5 echos.

On the southern side of Alaska there’s a bay called Port Chatham. Fish are plentiful there and in the 1900’s it was the fish, especially salmon, that led to towns developing around it. One village in particular, Portlock, had a fish cannery, but also thrived through logging. Its post office opened in 1921, and closed in 1950 due to people abandoning the town. Why? Well the simple answer is that Alaska Route 1 opened, making other areas that were also rich will fish and logging more accessible. No industry in Portlock, no town. But there are old stories that cast blame on something else. Records at the fish cannery include a note from a cannery supervisor in 1905 that describes how the native workers had left their jobs at the factory and vacated the area because of something in the forest that they feared. They returned a year later when the factor provided more security.

Now take this for what you will - we’re talking about the Alaskan wilderness, not a walk in the park. But there are tales of disappearances. People going into the woods to hunt, and not returning. A gold prospector who had gone out for a day and was never seen again. Or in the case of Andrew Kamluck, who went out logging in 1931, he was found, but killed, having suffered a massive blow to the head. In 1973 an Anchorage newspaper wrote about a woman who had taught in Port Chatham during WW2. She reported that multiple disappearances had happened during her time there when cannery workers went into the nearby mountains to hunt. Another story was from moose hunters. The described tracking a moose when they realized another set of tracks were ahead of them, also tracking the moose. These prints were human-shaped footprints, but exceeding 18 inches in length. Eventually they found an area with signs of a great struggle, where only the large human-like tracks walked away, and no further signs of the moose were in the area.

Another article gave an idea of what people were worried about out there, we can look at a was written in The Homer Tribune in 2009. They interviewed Melania Kehl, who had been born in Port Chatham in 1934. She said her parents, like many in the area, left because they couldn’t go into the nearby forests due to being afraid of a creature, half-man and half-beast, that they called Nan-tee-knock Nantilnaq. And based on sightings, like the one by Tom Larsen who was out chopping wood for fish traps when he was approached, this thing is tall and fur-covered. Even after the area was abandoned, many who are in the area for hunting come back with stories of something in the area harassing them. So Portlock is abandoned… question mark? Because even when shows like Alaskan Killer Bigfoot aren’t there investigating, maybe something is there. And he doesn’t want to share his fish. 5 out of 5 echos.

And that’s it for this round. What lessons did we learn? Try to stay clear of towns that have been built and lean really hard into an industry, especially if toxic waste is involved. And if birds are falling dead from rafters and everyone is breaking out in a rash, it’s time to make an exit plan. And whether it’s the sands of Lake Michigan, or the fires burning under Centralia, or Bigfoot getting sick and tired of that fish factory taking all his delicious salmon, nature is inevitable. We are just renting space.

And that’s it for this episode. As always,thank you for listening to my stories. For fun between episodes, follow me on Instagram, under professionalweirdopodcast. If you are enjoying the podcast and would like to support it, please make sure you hit that follow button. And a recommendation to others is always appreciated. You can also email me at professionalweirdopodcast@gmail.com

Songs I recommend with today’s episode can be found on the Spotify playlist I made to accompany this podcast. For each episode I’ve done or will do, I’ve pulled together a few songs. The ones for this episode are:

Ghost Town by The Specials

Cold Reactor by Everything Everything

Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth by the Primitive Radio Gods

The Pit by Mouse Rat

I’ll list these, along with the link to the playlist, in the show notes.

That’s a wrap! Sources used for this episode can be found in episode notes. Sound mixing performed by Brother Jay from The Rule of Scary podcast - check that out if you’re a horror movie fan! And hey! - thank you for listening to my stories. Keep it weird out there.