Wyoming Is The Best At Coming Up With Spooky Names
For some reason, there are places that we just can't help but name after the creepy feeling it gives us.
Other places get their creepy name by mistake.
Let's look at some places in Wyoming that have spooky or creepy names, for various reasons.
You can visit all of these places but one. The last one is a mystery. We know it is real but we have no idea how to find it.
The name is actually a mistake in two ways.
The first white people in the area asked the Indians what they called it. The Indians tried explaining a mischievous spirit or a bad god. Kind of like Loki in Nordic mythology.
'OH, it sounds like they are talking about THE DEVIL!'
So it was named Devil's Tower.
Next, when the place was officially given its new name, based on that mistake, the clerk forgot to type an apostrophe before the letter "S". So that is why you see Devil's Tower spelled the way that it is.
The Hoodoos
There are several places around Wyoming known as "HOODOOS."
In Wyoming, it refers to strange rock formations. Indians thought spirits caused the rocks to be shaped like that.
In the South, the word "hoodoo" comes from Voodoo. It refers to strange spirits or a single strange spirit at work. Down south a hoodoo can be a spirit raised from the dead by voodoo or even a zombie. It could be a spirit that never left or came back naturally. Or it could be a natural spirit like the spirit of nature itself.
The band Creedence Clearwater Revival's hit song Born On A Bayou mentions a boy's dog chasing after a strange spirit that the boy could not see.
I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Hell's Half Acer
Actually, this place had many names:
"The Devil's Kitchen", "The Pits of Hades", and "The Baby Grand Canyon."
Then one day a cowhand said that he thought he was in Hell's Half Acre, an area southwest of Casper full of alkali and bogs.
Local Indian tribes used to drive bison to their death during their hunts.
Devil's Gate
The name comes from the Indians in the area who spoke of a savage beast in those mountains.
Located near Independence Rock, it is another famous landmark for the wagon trains of the old west.
1872, a French Canadian who had anglicized his name to Tom Sun had established a hunting camp at Devil’s Gate.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the Mormons know the area well because of the many who died in the area, trapped in a winter storm.
Casper
Okay, fine, that was just the name of the City Of Casper is actually the name of an officer at the fort in the area who died in battle.
His name is misspelled by the way. It's Caspar.
But then came the TV show with the friendly ghost named Casper.
So I'll take it. and call it one of Wyoming's creepy-named places.
Fort Danger
The name of this place says it all, doesn't it?
Stories of UFOs, Bigfoot, spirits, and even things from other dimensions are spoken of here.
The problem is... no one really knows where Fort Danger is.
There is no doubt that people live there. The place is run like a farm and a ranch, of sorts. But nobody can confirm its actual location.
Maybe that's an interdimensional thing.