Reeder Road

An abandoned five-mile road that once connected Griffith and Merrillville, closed in the 1970s. The wooded, overgrown stretch of road has become one of Northwest Indiana's most notorious haunted locations.

Reeder Road in Griffith, Indiana, is a narrow, overgrown stretch of abandoned roadway in the swampy lowlands of Northwest Indiana that has terrified locals for generations. Once a connecting artery between Griffith and Merrillville, the road was closed to vehicle traffic in the 1970s and has since deteriorated into a crumbling walking path hemmed in by dense vegetation and marshland. Its isolation and eerie atmosphere have made it one of the most legendarily haunted locations in the region, accumulating a thick layer of folklore that spans nearly a century.

The most persistent legend involves a ghostly hitchhiker named Elizabeth Wilson. According to the story, drivers who picked up a young woman along Reeder Road would watch in horror as she vanished from the passenger seat the moment they passed Ross Cemetery. The hitchhiking ghost is a classic motif in American folklore, but locals insist the Reeder Road version is rooted in a real disappearance, though no verifiable historical record of Elizabeth Wilson has been confirmed. Variations of the story describe the woman appearing soaking wet, as though she had emerged from the swamp, and leaving the seat damp after she disappears.

The road's reputation grew darker with claims that the area was a popular dumping ground for Mafia killings during the 1930s. Northwest Indiana's proximity to Chicago made it a convenient disposal site for organized crime, and the dense swampland along Reeder Road could conceal a body indefinitely. Whether factual or embellished, these stories gave the road an association with violent death that persists to this day. By the 1980s and 1990s, the abandoned road had also gained a grim reputation as a suicide location, adding another layer of tragedy to its history.

Witnesses over the decades have reported a range of disturbing phenomena along Reeder Road. People have claimed to see bodies hanging from trees -- whether real, spectral, or imagined in the play of shadows and swamp mist. Strange creatures have been reported living in the swamp, and the sounds of footsteps following walkers along the path are frequently described, stopping when the walker stops and resuming when they move again. Cold spots appear in the warm summer air, and an oppressive feeling of being watched pervades the entire stretch of road.

The Indiana Ghost Research organization conducted an investigation of Reeder Road, documenting their findings and noting the area's unusually high concentration of reported paranormal activity for an outdoor location. The combination of its documented history -- organized crime connections, suicides, and the closure that transformed a functioning road into an abandoned path through swampland -- creates what paranormal researchers describe as ideal conditions for residual hauntings.

Today, Reeder Road remains accessible on foot, though the overgrown path and surrounding wetlands make nighttime visits genuinely hazardous regardless of any supernatural dangers. The road has become a rite of passage for young people in Northwest Indiana, who dare each other to walk its length after dark. Whether they encounter Elizabeth Wilson, the shadows of Depression-era violence, or simply the natural unease that comes from walking alone through a swamp on a crumbling road, Reeder Road delivers an experience that keeps its legends alive.