Tales of perpetual fire, demons and ghosts haunt these creepy US towns Phaedra Trethan, USA TODAYOctober 20, 2025 at 7:01 AM 0 Some places are just spooky. Salem, Massachusetts, leans into its history as the home of 17th century witch trials, highlighting its Puritanera churches and graveyards.
- - Tales of perpetual fire, demons and ghosts haunt these creepy US towns
Phaedra Trethan, USA TODAYOctober 20, 2025 at 7:01 AM
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Some places are just spooky.
Salem, Massachusetts, leans into its history as the home of 17th century witch trials, highlighting its Puritan-era churches and graveyards. There are occult- and witchcraft-themed shops and museums, tall ships and tours. Sleepy Hollow, New York, is the namesake and setting for Washington Irving's 19th century story of the Headless Horseman, a story that's haunted readers and inspired television and film adaptations.
But those aren't the only places that feel haunted — or at least unsettlingly creepy — in the United States.
Centralia, Pennsylvania
A long-burning underground coal fire has left Centralia a virtual ghost town. Located in the anthracite coal region in the Appalachian Mountains, the Columbia County town was founded in 1866. At its peak in 1890, about 2,800 people lived there, and the town had hotels, theaters, churches, saloons and stores — all the things that made up a bustling, if small, mining town, according to Centraliapa.org.
A boulder-sized lump of coal has a miniature plastic human skull resting on it February 2, 2010 in Centralia. The coal sits in the yard of a surviving house in the Pennsylvania town under which a subterranean coal fire has been burning for decades.
But demand for anthracite coal began to decline in the middle of the 20th century, and the mining industry moved on. By 1950, about 2,000 people lived in Centralia.
On May 27, 1962, something big changed: Centraliapa.org says (citing "Fire Underground," a book by David DeKok) local firefighters tried to clean the town's landfill by setting it on fire.
The landfill, though, was over an old strip mining pit, and the fires kept burning, entering abandoned mines and burning out of control. By the 1980s, it was a full-blown health hazard, spreading carbon monoxide into the air and opening sinkholes in the area. Residents, aided by the state, mostly moved away, though there were some holdouts.
Smoke, caused by an underground coal fire, rises on a hill overlooking Centralia on February 2, 2010. Power windmills can be seen in the distance near Pennsylvania town under which a subterranean coal fire has been burning for decades.
The fire is still burning — and while Centralia is mostly abandoned now, it is not a safe place to visit, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania warns: The area is "extremely dangerous," and with dangerous gases still in the area, the ground "is prone to sudden and unexpected collapse."
Sounds pretty scary to us.
Cassadaga, Florida
There's something supernatural about Cassadaga, residents and visitors say. The town, about 25 miles southwest of Daytona Beach, Florida, is home to mediums, psychics and healers, many practicing out of their homes. The town has several late 19th-century buildings and, with all those spiritualists, one would have to assume at least a few ghosts and specters are lurking.
A sign welcomes you to the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp, now celebrating its 130th year, on Friday, March 15, 2024.
In 2024, Cassadaga celebrated its 130th anniversary. According to the Daytona Beach News Journal (part of the USA TODAY Network), the town was founded by a New York native named George Colby, who claimed he could communicate with the dead and said a Native American woman's spirit directed him to start a spiritualist community in the South. He and Theodore Giddings founded Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association, which exists to this day.
Calling itself "the Psychic Capital of the World," Cassadaga leans into its origins. There's a brick bench in the cemetery called "The Devil's Chair," with urban legends about possible portals and satanic encounters.
New Jersey's Pine Barrens
The Pine Barrens of New Jersey encompass several towns and counties, and in the most densely populated state in the U.S., it's a wooded wonderland of weirdness and natural beauty.
Legend says the Pine Barrens, which are filled with scrub pine but are far from barren, may also contain a devil. And perhaps a portal to another dimension.
In a 1936 book, "Forgotten Towns of Southern New Jersey," Henry Charlton Beck described Ong's Hat, one of many abandoned towns in the Pines, a "vanished town of murder, of prize fights and of isolated country dances," a place that "a hundred or so years ago, we were told ... was a center of life among the Pineys," with "brawls and fisticuffs, some of them bloody enough." Weird NJ, a magazine whose name says it all, wondered in 2023 whether there might be even more than a sketchy past, asking, "Ong's Hat: Piney Ghost Town or Gateway to Another Dimension?"
And leave it to New Jersey to have its own official state demon: As legend has it, an 18th century woman, Mrs. Leeds, discovered she was pregnant with her 13th child, and cried out in anger and dismay, "Let it be the devil!" She may have gotten her wish, because generations of Jerseyans swear they've seen the cloven-hooved, winged creature with the head of a horse emerge from the swamps and bogs of the Pines over the next two centuries.
Caddo Lake, Texas
Caddo Lake, Texas, has bald cypress trees, Spanish moss, bayous, ponds and rustic cabins. It may also have ghosts and perhaps its own version of Bigfoot.
Caddo Lake, Texas, is known for bald cypress trees draped with Spanish moss. Some locals also believe the area is haunted.
Lane Neely, a park interpreter for Caddo Lake State Park, told USA TODAY that he's heard tales about a lake creature and a ghostly woman. "I have to be scientific and try to give people a great experience here at the park," Neely said, "but I love to play into the horror stories."
Caddo Lake is the setting for a 2024 M. Night Shyamalan movie of the same name, he said. "It looks like a scene from a horror movie here," and indeed, the Spanish moss, swamps and cypress trees have been the backdrop for several television shows as well.
Caddo Lake, Texas, draws visitors in the fall who come to see its bald cypress trees and their changing colors.
But it's also a beautiful place, Neely was quick to add, especially in the fall as the leaves change colors.
Other notable ghostly towns
Savannah, Georgia is an old city, and like any old city, it's got its share of ghost stories. Its Antebellum-era architecture, graveyards and moss-covered trees give Savannah a strong ghostly vibe. At least one hotel, the Marshall House, is believed to be haunted: Doors reportedly close on their own, faucets supposedly turn on spontaneously and there might just be bones under the floorboards at this 1851-vintage spot.
That same Southern sensation of mossy trees, big graveyards and old streets makes New Orleans another city with a haunted vibe. NOLA has a past that combines into a gumbo of Native America, French, Caribbean and African traditions, and it's been the setting for a host of horrific tales including "Interview with the Vampire," "American Horror Story" and "True Blood."
The American West is dotted with ghost towns, formerly booming areas that were abandoned for a variety of reasons. Bisbee, Arizona, has one of those ghost towns, an area that used to be the town of Lowell. Atlas Obscura calls Erie Street there "like walking into a 1950s post-apocalyptic landscape," with rusted-out cars, trucks and even a bus giving the place a feeling like the residents of this former mining town were there — until they suddenly weren't.
Phaedra Trethan was born in New Jersey and lived there most of her life. While she regularly hikes in the Pine Barrens, she's encountered only Pineys, and has not come face to face with the Jersey Devil. Yet. Reach her at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The scariest US towns feature tales of fire, demons and ghosts
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