The Haunted Playground In North Dakota That Will Send Shivers Down Your Spine
By Leah|Published September 14, 2018
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Leah
Author
Leah moved to North Dakota when she was 12 years old and has traveled from the Red River Valley to the badlands and many places in between. She loves small-town life and currently enjoys living on a small farm in the ND prairie. She's always had a passion for writing and has participated in novel writing challenges such as NaNoWriMo multiple times. Her favorite part about this job is recognizing small businesses that deserve a boost and seeing the positive affect her articles can have on their traffic, especially in rural areas that might have otherwise gone overlooked.
North Dakota has its history, some of which can be more sad than others. Sometimes remnants of that history can pop up here and there, even in the most unexpected of places. Out of all of the places you might think of to be as haunted, a playground probably doesn’t come to mind. But that’s exactly what has long been thought of as haunted in Fargo, North Dakota, and the story behind it will send shivers down your spine.
Fargo, North Dakota's Trollwood Park isn't just your ordinary park - though it may look it.
The Trollwood Park in Fargo was built on a graveyard from the early to mid-1900s. Though most of the remains that were buried here were moved when the park was built, it was later found out that not all of them had made it out. There are still people buried on these grounds, and their story is generally a sad one - it was a pauper's cemetery for those who couldn't afford anything better.
Before it was a park, this land was used for a county hospital and asylum that was built in 1895.
The Cass County Hospital was built on these grounds over a century ago. It was there for the less fortunate and those who couldn't afford to go to a regular hospital. It was also a place where older or mentally disabled people with no family to take care of them went to essentially live out the rest of their days until they passed. Poor people who needed a job could also work on the grounds in the gardens to help farm food for the hospital. This continued until 1947 when it became strictly a nursing home, later called Golden Acres Haven, until it shut down in 1973. It was then part of the Fargo Parks District and Trollwood Performing Arts school.
The people who lived, worked, and died here when it was still a hospital were often buried in poorly made and unmarked graves. The cemetery was also badly kept up over the years. Over 300 coffins were moved when the park was made, but it is unknown how many still remain in places that were never marked and became overgrown.
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Over the years since it became a park, there have been reports of a lingering spirit.
The park has many trees, including a willow that has become notorious for ghost sightings. This particular ghost is described as a woman dressed in a blue dress that dances around the tree. This willow tree is right where a stone that was placed to mark one of the cemeteries lies. Multiple paranormal groups have investigated the park and considered it haunted, supposedly experiencing the feeling of being followed and hearing disembodied voices.
Whether you believe in ghosts or not, Fargo's Trollwood Park certainly has a history to it.
Have you ever had a ghostly experience at Trollwood Park or elsewhere in North Dakota? This isn’t the only place in the state that is reported to be haunted. If you love all things paranormal and creepy, you’ll definitely want to take this spooky North Dakota road trip to some of the most terrifying places in the state.
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