Slenderverse Archives

Continued

This is the last of the external links))

Fairmount Children's Home

A privately run orphanage opened just outside Alliance in 1873 under this name. As the city expanded the Fairmount Children's Home was given a city address--6774 Union Street NE--and its population grew.

In the twentieth century, Fairmount garnered a reputation as a truly miserable place for unfortunate Ohio children to be sent, and this was mainly due to the ministrations of a particularly cruel headmaster. The headmaster beat the orphans mecilessly, even to the point of torture, and may have been responsible for the deaths of one or more. This was the story told in the orphanage's later years, at least; and they told about the night in 1944 when the children rose up in revolt against the sadistic headmaster and lynched him from a thick pipe in the basement.

After that, the dead headmaster would be seen standing over children's beds at night, or following them down the dim halls. Class photos taken of the orphans sometimes developed with his shadowy figure standing behind one child or another, seeming to menace him.

The hauntings continued after the orphanage was shut down and the house turned into a private home. In the late 1990s it was abandoned for a time, vandalized badly, and finally burned mysteriously to the ground. Signs of the haunted orphanage can still be seen on Union Street in Alliance.

UPDATE

December 9, 2002: The Fairmount Home burns to the ground for unknown reasons. Sites like this (and Ohio Trespassers, which was way ahead of the curve on exploring it) are hinted at as the culprits. So the upshot is, you can't really go inside and explore anymore. All that's left, until they knock it down or let it fall in, is this: