That place gives me the creeps. Any locals there want to put my mind to rest?

It was early afternoon and there were only five people there including the bartender. I sat there quietly pretending to read my phone while I eavesdropped on a conversation between a couple locals. They were gossiping about a lady they knew who had shot her husband. The whole scene had a pretty outlandish vibe to it. I thought it felt like a song by James McMurtry. Within a few minutes "Choctaw Bingo" came on the jukebox.

Every little town was a nightmare. Really thought I was going to be murdered for my VW and my hair. Serious hate-faces everywhere.

Never went that way again.

Oh, and Citrus Heights. I lived there for a year -- holy crap, everyone was insane. Everyone.

Los Alamos New Mexico and Aberdeen, Wa.

Both my husband and my son remarked on how creepy Aberdeen was when I mentioned it.
My son said, "no wonder Kurt Cobain left this place."

Los Alamos was fine but the bomb museum had really bad vibes.

More of a shithole than creepy....Old, dilapidated, run down. It’s trying to turn around, tho. When the lumber industry went tits up, it devastated the area economy.

It seems more dead than anything to me. The big signs boasting about being the lumber Capitol of the world must be from the middle of the last century. It’s depressing and broken, like the Pennsylvania steel towns were when I lived there in the 80s.

I was next to a vehicle that had very professionally painted on its door the description of a business as a "Christian goat farm" along with those words. I felt sorry for the goats and wanted get the F out of that place ASAP.

what religion the goats were?

I bet it wasn't this one

I felt at home in rural Colorado, Utah, California. Have not been to New England, but I bet it has good vibes too.

They’re very much of a different world and I know they have terrible racial history but there’s a remarkable richness to places like Clarksdale and Oxford and Vicksburg. The coast where I grew up has been so altered over time its face is different. But crazy as it is, it’s got a lot of soul.

buildings total in town, some 1800s. Really small, no gas station or fast food. I liked it a lot. The drive on old country roads and scenery was great. I expected some real white wingers. But the first tent was local Democratic organization. Didn’t even see a GOPer one. They were probably out on militia maneuvers. Got a couple of stickers, left a donation, and thanked them for their efforts.

I’m sure much of Mississippi is like that, nice if you give it a chance. Plus, it’s Freedom Rider country.

Now, I dated a lady from Pascagoula, but don’t get me started on that.

there are decent people. The other 50% . . . . . .

We lived with my grandparents much of the time since my father was Air Force, part Biloxi and part Southeast Asia during Vietnam. But The Coast has a very fluid population and isn’t like the rest of the state. I moved to New Orleans as soon as I could and think of it, and that aspect of the coast, as my home of the heart. I did write a couple of books that feature Pascagoula though. 😄

I’m in Seattle for many years now. Quite a difference!

Each year, I drive from NYC to my dad's house near Pensacola. I have to drive the entire North-South length of Alabama which is, interestingly, longer than Pennsylvania East-West.

It's a scary place for a Yankee.


ETA: The highways are superior. The road surfaces are excellent, the road markings are clear and strongly contrasting and the rest areas are plentiful, clean and well-lit.

Still, it's a scary place.

There's a shadow over that place

Aberdeen, mentioned above and not far away from Montesano, has a persistent smell of fishy decay, much like Innsmouth. But Aberdeen is just sad and rundown. Montesano has the feel of hostility toward outsiders, just like Innsmouth.

Probably because I lived in the desert at that time. But, I was
fascinated by Roslyn, WA and planned to name a daughter
Roslyn, if I ever had a daughter. Didn't happen.

Needles CA in the Summer is a whole other mind set of unreality.

Tikki

Stayed there overnight earlier this year. Was paying for a bag of ice and the clerk noticed my out of state drivers license. She advised to keep my doors locked and be careful after dark because crime was bad.

Later I asked our server at dinner what the town was known for. She replied "the girl in the box....go Google it"

I did, and we decided to leave extra early in the morning. Will save you the effort, here is the link.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Colleen_Stan

The place had a very dark and bad vibe.

sometimes the bad vibes really do stay. I believe that energy can linger for years....

So a nonbeliever in lingering bad vibes and bad juju as metaphysical phenomena. Also, unlike many of our Bible Belt neighbors, I really don't believe in demons, or of course in liberal monsters waiting to snatch them from under the bed.

But that waitress's immediate answer of "the girl in the box" sounds like a symptom of a very real emotional trauma that horror has caused that poor community. How sad for them.

That place has a lot of bad juju

https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/api/amp/indiancountrytoday/archive/the-nod-and-a-wink-slaughter-what-california-s-native-genocide-looked-like-KFFR3Q_cNkC5liyrKxuNdQ

My car broke down just outside of town. It was under warranty, so I had it towed to the dealership, and walked the streets while it was being repaired.

It was about 115F - degrees out, and walking up a couple of blocks from the dealership, and over a couple of blocks to the post office where I conducted some business, just about dried me out.

I had lunch in a small diner fortunately situated in the shade, and had glass after glass of water, and later, glass after glass of iced tea. I was as dry as a husk.

I picked up my car and made tracks for LA.

Never been back...

I have family there, lots of friends. The heat can be oppressive but I've never had problems over the last 38 years visiting. I've bicycled through there in the 70s, motorcycled through several times in the 80s and visit there about every couple of years. They have a nice small airport there where many of the firefighters fly out of for aerial fire fighting across CA and OR.

I think the idea of bad Juju is just imagination gone a little... creative.

It's a prison town, and the prison guard mentality permeates everything. I live halfway between it and a university town; the difference is like night and day. Happy times in the college town, creepy times in 'Cow Town'.

Both in terms of what's behind the walls and what's outside of them.

Same for Alcatraz, but there are genuine bad vibes in Vacaville.

Same bad prison vibe

Seems like a lot of the bad guys in the western novels spent hard time in that joint and didn't like it to much.

Half way between Vacaville and Davis?

although McGill has the remains of a big mining bust from about a century ago.

...spent a night there a few years ago, and felt oddly out of sync. Not sure why. Just a feeling that there was something a little weird, Twilight Zonish, Stephen Kingish about the place. The people were nice enough, but I had a sense of dread. I remember looking up in an area of older homes, and seeing a teenage girl sitting on top of a porch, reading a book...and there was something oddly sinister about it. I have no idea why I felt like this, but I just did. I'm sure it's a very nice place...

It does have a Twilight Zone-ishness about it. Perhaps it's a combination of older homes in a mostly rural area that reminds me of a Hitchcock film where everything seems fine on the surface but if that were the case, why would we be watching the movie?

The people are like people everywhere: mostly friendly, some cranks. In any event, we're happy to be in Damascus, PA across the Delaware River from Callicoon, NY. Lovely country!

Republic, Missouri and Cairo, Illinois spring to mind. I find both Alabama and Mississippi to be unnerving to drive through.

And East Saint Louis Illinois

Admittedly, I haven't been to Hutchinson for years so it might have changed, but I grew up south of Wichita, in a small farming town called Clearwater so weekends were spent going to Wichita. I also go to Garden City at least once a year to twist balloons at the Finney County Fair held there. Maybe because I know a family there plus everyone loves a balloon twister, but I find the place incredibly friendly.

TlalocW

I think terrible things happen there.

After that, Hays, Kansas. It was like the twilight zone.

I was an hour away but could probably count on both hands how many times I actually visited the city.

We’d go their for field trips (and when it came to museums and historical government buildings it was virtually unparalleled) but beyond that there was no real reason to go there.

And you’d see it so much on the news but it could have as well been 1000 miles away. I had no emotional attachment to the place and it barely felt like it was even in my own backyard. Contrast that with Baltimore, which was slightly further away (an hour and a half compared to an hour for DC) but because we had family there that we visited every week, it was for all intents and purposes a second hometown for me.

Driving in DC was weird. The traffic grid made absolutely no sense. Tons of traffic circles, one ways, detours, and odd angled intersections. You could get lost driving in DC like nothing. I remember even the traffic lights in DC were weird—they were all green and not mounted over the middle of intersections like everywhere else.

I believe it’s probably changed a lot since I lived in the area—a lot of gentrification—but being in DC the times I was there growing up always felt odd and foreign.

Except for one thing: the Metro. The Metro felt sleek and exciting the times I remember riding it.

That place was built on creepy.

Lived in the area for a few years.

Really weird place in the sense that there are no major roads leading to it, very few signs directing to it, and most maps don't even bother include it. But it's there.

I did go to a "spiritualist" meeting there once. It felt more silly than spooky. The "spiritualist" told me I was destined to become a professional bowler--I kid you not. I'm still waiting on that to pan out.

Most of our calls came from Holly Hill, which was, essentially, an incorporated trailer park. But the calls from Cassadaga were all bizarre - claims of "psychic thefts" and the like. There were spiritualists on one side of the street and psychics on the other, constantly at war. It was entirely about their competing businesses, but everybody was bonkers to start with.

Not "creepy" creepy - more like cartoon weirdness.

A professional bowler and warring psychics and spiritualists.

I'm going to have to go check out those places.

Reminds me, east of Ocala out in the scrublands in the middle of nowhere (nearest supermarket better part of an hour's drive) down a long sand track on the shore of a quiet lake is a little MH park community. Imagine my surprise at finding what I suspected was a liberal-dominated community in such a place. It was funky but nice, not weird or neglected, fair amount of decorative gardening around old MHs. We had a long talk with an educated woman who'd chosen this place for retirement when she wasn't traveling and met a resident who'd made a name for himself in Florida environmental affairs, also a bear that liked to hang around people going for walks. We were told the sheriff's department and county officials paid them little attention since they were so out of the way.

Springfield

Welcome to DU!

... when I was a teenager on Summer Break, I traveled with my older brother to a "planned community" in Maryland where he interviewed for an electrical engineering job. He declined the job because of the "weird vibe" at the company and the community in general.

The people in that area were soooooo uptight. You could hear a pin drop at their restaurants because people didn't talk, even when there was a group of them at a table (assumed to be families in most cases). A city of zombies, it seemed.

In stark contrast, I also traveled with my brother to Knoxville TN around that time and everyone seemed happy and talkative.

EDIT: I think it was Columbia, MD.

EDIT #2: It was in the mid-80's.

if I've been through any places like that. Nothing comes to mind but it's fun to read about other people's experiences...

I went on a fishing/camping trip with a friend at Paint Creek Lake in SW Ohio years ago, and the locals in that vicinity reminded me of the "inbred" characters from the movie, "Deliverance". When we encountered "friendly" ones, they even pointed out directions in a similar manner... with a broad wave of the arm to indicate "thataway", which unfortunately encompassed several forks in roads and therefore wasn't very helpful.

That sounds awful of me, but the people around that area were so mean and unfriendly to me and my friend! We tried to be nice, but they didn't trust us "Yankees".

We were from a suburb of Dayton OH, for crying out loud! It's not like we were visitors from the other side of the planet!

in mid 1990's. Sign on the wall at the Motel,out of State over night guests make sure nothing is left in your cars.

... by how much Alabama resembled Ohio.

I stopped for gas at Tallahassee, wearing an OSU shirt and hat. A group of young people at the gas station seemed to glare at me, but they reciprocated with broad smiles and waves after I did the same.

Alabama looked like Ohio from months earlier, given the warmer climate there.

I even had a problem photographing them close up. Creeepy.

Very Creepy. Desolate. I have all the feelings you describe about the location of the Facebook Campus.

are not meant to live in that desert, and it’s being ruined, and polluted. There are forces there that want humans out, and the whole valley gives me a weird vibe. Hated every minute of the 13 years I lived there.

There's a dilapidated Inn and a gas station, not much else. The inn was rebuilt in the Victorian era after a fire burned the original Gold Rush hotel.

We had some very creepy things happen. My son was young at the time and fidgety so I left my husband downstairs to settle up the restaurant bill and took the kids upstairs. We were at the end of a long wooden hall with very loudly creaking boards.

In the room, my son kept whining, "Where's Daddy?" There was then a loud knock on the door. I was standing two feet away and opened it. Nobody there. I looked down the hall, nothing, just a whiff of perfume. Nobody coudl've moved out of sight that fast.

The next morning I mentioned this and the innkeeper got an odd look. Then he told us about the ghost of a woman who haunts that floor -- apparently the inn had once been a brothel and she was a prostitute whose spirit reportedly roams the hall looking for her lost little boy, who perished in the fire. We later had water turn on by itself in our room.

She's not the only ghost there. The original innkeeper was murdered in the 1800s and his spirit is apparently still around - guests in the master suite reporting having pressure on them when they are in bed, as though someone is sitting on them; others report smelling cigar smoke that the owner favored (the inn is now nonsmoking). The innkeeper said he never believed all the stories when he bought the place, until he found his dog who had been outside was suddenly on the roof--and the door to the attic was locked.

This place once had parapsychologists visit, a team that would go around the couple debunking ghost stories. This was one of only two places they concluded really were haunted; they rest were scams or couldn't be confirmed.

The place used to host murder mystery parties that started at the cemetery, where the original innkeeper's grave looked like bricks had been torn away, supposedly by his restless spirit. The guests who try to solve the mystery of his murder.

It was quite a unique experience, all due to an overheated radiator!

That hotel was one of the first places that I thought of when I read this post!

I stayed there in 1990 after the wedding of the sister of John Garamendi (who was a Senator at the time; their extended family is from "Moke Hill&quot .

Nothing as dramatic as described in the previous post happened during our one night stay, but the spooky vibe was so strong there that I recall it clearly, 28 years later. It felt like we had time traveled at least 100 years when were there.

Bit of trivia - the big mahogany bar was used in the movie "The Unsinkable Mollie Brown" the Titanic survivor.

This was December 1977. Got married in Sunnyvale, first night in MK, and then a week of honeymoon (and skiing) at North Tahoe. Then back to Cal for another 4 quarters for me and 5 quarters for her to graduate. Then the Mokelumne Hotel was fixed nice as a B&R type establishment. They fixed a nice light super for us. There was no mention of a haunting. But we did walk around the small village the next morning and the walk included going through a grave yard and looking at Gold Rush era headstones. Never have been back to MK.

a thing exists.)

power concentrated, like a nervous vertigo) as Vatican Square in Rome, Italy one beautiful sunny morning when the Pope (or, as my Polish friend called him, The Cuckoo) came out of his window onto the balcony to greet us.

Years ago when the boys were just little kids, were on our way to Memphis to visit family. I don't think any of us felt well, as we would go on to come down with the flu, so I'm sure that added to the poor association. Seems like it took forever to drive through and I remember feeling like we were never going to get out of that city. When we stopped for gas we noticed everyone we saw was smoking and that didn't help our queasiness. We later joked that we spent "a week in Oklahoma City one day." After that trip we would drive an hour out of the way to avoid OC. I still avoid it.

leave. Very strange place.

but I know Ave Maria Law School. Ave Maria is owned by the guy who founded Dominoes Pizza - Monaghan. He's a Catholic religious nutjob. The law school's private (a fifth tier law school at that) and their sole purpose is to train lawyers who will go on to overturn Roe v. Wade. The town of Ave Maria is probably lily white. It's a planned/closed community. It's straight out of Handmaid's Tale.

I have been to Heritage USA (Jim and Tammy Faye Baker) in South Carolina years ago and it was the same sort of creepy as Ave Maria. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

I ate at a place in the North of the city near the port. I was distracted by the belly dancer but felt kinda creeped out when leaving. Maybe it was just being told that pirates were active through the strait. But I felt better on the hydrofoil heading to Spain.

Except, I know the secret they're harboring.

Fifty-plus years ago, on a family vacation, we ran out of gas at 3:30 in the (Sunday) morning outside of Jetmore, KS. Jetmore isn't really much of a town, it's more a wide spot in the road. No open gas stations (certainly not at that hour), and in fact, only one even opened on Sunday at all then. Fortunately, my dad happened to walk up to that one, find a friendly local who called the owner, who was kind enough to get out of bed, come into town, and open the station early to give Dad some gasoline, and then drive him back to the car so we could get going again. It has been a running joke in our family ever since, but even now, I top off the tank before I go to that part of the state, and I detour AROUND Jetmore! even tho it's MILES out of the way--I won't go back through that town.

truly creepy and I only went once and didn't stay long.

I was passing through on a business trip from D.C. I can't even talk about the weird mojo, but when I rented a motel room in the afternoon, got the key and went to enter, the key broke off in the door. It seemed an omen and scared the hell out of me. Gone. Back to San Antonio.

It felt creepy...the people seemed like they would fit in a David Lynch movie.

Jeffs home base, although I didn't know that when I drove through there about 15 years ago. I stopped for gas and just got a weird vibe from the locals, who didn't seem to want me there. Later on I found out about the town's history and their reluctance to engage with outsiders.

Very bad vibes going into the part of town where my hotel was located. Sat in the taking lot trying to appear positive for the sake of my son. Checked in,went up to our room, told the kid not to touch anything because I didn’t think we should stay. He had the same creeped-out feeling, because he let out a huge sigh of relief. The front desk wouldn’t refund my money, so I called the main number for the chain. My son was laughing hysterically because it was the first time he had heard me “pitch a fit like a diva.” Once that was settled, we tossed everything into the back of the pickup, tires screeching, until I hit a one way sign that would have brought us right back into the center of town. I said, “Oh hell no. F— that!” And drove right over the median. It was probably also the first time he heard me say the f word, too. I actually googled the town to see if any major Civil War battles had been fought there.,

The Lord Culpepper.

https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:th83m283c

I wish it had been. I love those older hotels the retain their charm and a bit of mystery.

I think it's an old folks condo now.

We'd pass through on our way to hiking in the Appalachian Mountains. From what I remember, the downtown area seemed fairly alive and charming, but I can't say I spent much time there.

Had just finished camping, so we weren’t looking for much.

People stop talking and their eyes turn to daggers. Smile at them; it pisses them off.

I was staying with a friend in town, it was early in the morning and I was starving for breakfast, so I found a place downtown.

I walked in, and it felt like one of those westerns where the stranger walks into the saloon and all the music stops. Everyone in there just turned their head and stared silently at me. It was very awkward.

In retrospect, the fact that the place was advertised as a "Cafe/Gun Shop" should have been a major red flag. But I was just hungry, and it was literally the only place open in the entire town.

That's hilarious.

Many of those folks are still living in the 1930s and 1940s,
prejudice-wise.

And I feel a bit classist for saying it, because its biggest problem by far is poverty, and the social ills (meth and opioid addiction especially) that go with it. But it was once a very prosperous small town, so it has a downtown area that would be quaint if it wasn't boarded up and seedy, and a waterfront that is slowly crumbling into the harbor. It has a cold and wet climate, with about twice as much rainfall as the national average, and it's about the same latitude as Fargo or Bangor, so long dark winter nights.

As a result, pretty much anyone with ability or ambition leaves, so the people that remain are pretty insular, and there's a lot of NIMBYism in that while the locals complain about the drugs, prostitution, and crime, they also tend to oppose any plans for economic development, because they like the "small town atmosphere" and low cost of living. And much like the dying towns in coal country, instead of trying to find a modern economic base (despite the rain, the area is beautiful, with some investment and better PR they could probably have a respectable tourism industry) they hold out hope for the days when everyone could go straight from high school into a middle class wage at the lumber mills.

... until I quit high school.

Harassing brown and black and queer people was a favorite sport of the local police.

White Prosperity Gospel Christians creep me out. I know who you are, Brett Kavanaugh.

In middle school the bullies decided I could never be part of their community and I think their parents pretty much felt the same way. Whenever I got beaten bloody it was my always my fault for provoking them. I was queerbait.

My parents were there because they are artists who had more than a sensible number of children to feed, so they couldn't be too picky about their day jobs. They fled very soon after my dad retired. Me and my siblings fled. The schoolmates I have the greatest respect for fled too, well except those who fled to even whiter parts of the U.S.A., probably the first time they saw a Spanish speaking Mexican family shopping at the local mall, depressing property values.

As an adult I've always been a minority white guy in in my community. I like it that way, this is my home. This doesn't mean I've not suffered cringe-worthy white privilege.

I do not want to mention specific towns lest I bum someone out that lives there.

But there are many small towns in PA that fit that description.

In spite of this, it is a generally a beautiful state with friendly people.

I've lived in western PA for just over a year now.

There are some disturbing drug and crime related undercurrents in my town, and bald evidence of the generational, mobbish nepotism that has squeezed out much of the past vibrancy.

We're sometimes left wondering whether the late night pop-pop-pop was from fireworks or gunfire.

Old houses, inbred populations, eerie weather. Great place to film horror movies! LOL

I used to call it the armpit of California. Fresno is the taint.

I believe the land is cursed.

Klan Kountry.

and South Carolina. Every town except for Atlanta.

Back when I was in my late teens I went hitchhiking with a buddy for a week or so around northern NH/Maine border area. We each had a small backpack and he had a guitar w/o a case. We did well just staying at roadside cabins and busking in some towns. We had a great day in North Conway, NH but were heading for the beach towns of Maine so we caught a ride to the state line town of Fryeburg. It's on the edge of mountains and forest and camps but still, the towns are old, rural New England with many remnants of the colonial times.

It was late and the sun was setting, we were tired and no traffic was going by for a long time so we sat under a big tree for a while and talked about creepy stories about little towns. As the sun was setting we heard the bells in the town church playing "The Old Rugged Cross", which was kind of creepy in the first place, then we heard a bus coming down the road, it was a summer camp bus with a long-haired hippie driving it. As we got up and stepped forward to the edge of the road to try and catch a ride, a huge branch fell from the tree we were just sitting under, right where we were sitting only five or so feet behind us!

Fortunately, the bus with the hippie stopped and gave us a ride to the next burg where we rented a small cabin for a couple days. I do have to say that New England has lots of creepy places but I've found many out west too.

Montesano is a deeply spooky little town in Grays Harbor County, Washington, not far from the economically depressed city of Aberdeen, Kurt Cobain's home town.

I lodged there while attending my hospitalist rotation at Grays Harbor County Community Hospital. It's a really weird place. Perpetual drizzle, a damp, mossy atmosphere, deserted streets, a surreal 'Twin Peaks' vibe, and the feeling when you walk down the street that hostile residents are peering out at you from behind blinds, watching you......waiting...

It boasts a magnificent courthouse. But the tale of bullet holes that can be spotted on the doorframe of the courthouse only solidifies a feeling of sinister brooding over the place.

I was never so glad to get out of a place in my life...

Also, St. Louis.

Home of Sing Sing

Little kid got lynched near Barnes St, not a mile away, about a year ago.

Neighborhood Nazi got shot outside the Chinese "lounge", police investigation disappeared in 3 days. Nobody local (including my 87 yo. Mom) is even surprised.

It's home, and it's family, and it's mountains I can see out the window. But there are some deeply wrong things in the underpinnings of this old place, and you got to look sharp to not get caught up.

we come in contact with in these towns. I have been to and well remember most of the places mentioned in this thread. I have no feelings of weird about any of them. There's bad history almost anywhere and there are a lot of cultural differences from one place to another. I see everyplace as an experience of the moment rather than fear the past or be wary of different ways of life.

Good people and not such good people are everywhere. I do try to expect the good, but I avoid the bad as well. It's as simple as that to me.

Los Alamos has never come to terms with what it is, and is always trying to be something else, and it produces a very strange sense of 'not there-ness' about it. There are actually a lot of nice people there. But drive around the lab areas, go to any of the museums or historical sites and it's very surreal. A kind of proxy for all the places of mass death, frosted over with science and technology and propaganda.

Mesa AZ is just dead. There is no "there" there at all. As far as I can tell no one who lives there was born there. It's just an expensive, open plan warehouse for people waiting to die in comfort.

shudderingly,
Bright

Always had a heavy feel to it even during Mardi Gras. I could feel the multitudes entombed above ground. It was a dark feeling that I suppose might be described as bad mojo and always left me uneasy, more numb than relaxed.

never been there at Mardi Gras.

Driving cross country listening to a radio show. There was extreme fury about a report a white patient had been given an infusion of blood from a black person. For some reason I remember the peculiarly very black soil on the side of the highway. Why do I remember that detail? I haven’t thought about this for many decades. God it brings back another memory, visiting my grandmother on the way. She was terrified because there were hippies in the park near where she lived. I guess she thought they might kill her.

There were police EVERYWHERE, groups of goose-stepping soldiers marching around, people not wanting to look you in the eye, for fear you were Stasi, and looking for them. Waiters in cafés not wanting to be bothered to serve people, or getting them to break up into smaller groups. More than four at one table were prohibited (might be a plot to dissolve socialism, or something).

That was one VERY creepy place.

Port town in Essex.