Origin: Ohio
Gore Orphanage is a scary legend about a group of children who died in a fire. The location is said to be one of the most haunted places in Ohio.
The legend of Gore Orphanage begins with a married couple named Johann and Katharina Sprunger who lived in Indiana. After their young son and daughter died under mysterious circumstances, Mr. and Mrs. Sprunger decided to start an orphanage.
They called their orphanage The Light of Hope Orphanage. Unfortunately, it burned down in 1899 and three orphan girls were burned alive in the blaze.
Putting this tragedy behind them, the Sprungers moved to Vermilion, Ohio, where they started a new orphanage in 1903. This was called Gore Orphanage and, eventually, they had over 100 boys and girls living there.
But all was not well with the children of Gore Orphanage. Rumors of darkness and despair soon plagued the old place. The children told horrific stories of abuse, neglect and slave labor.
Mrs. Sprunger cooked cow's heads and lungs and forced the children to eat the foul meat or starve. Mr. Sprunger beat the poor kids with a leather strap until their bodies were covered in bloody welts and bruises. He would also rent out the children to local farmers as slave labor.
The boys and girls were only allowed to wash once every two weeks, and they all had to use the same bath and dirty bathwater. The children's rooms were infested with rats that crawled into their beds and bit them while they lay asleep.
Soon, the terrified children began trying to escape from Gore Orphanage. Some of them managed to run away from the home, wading through the Vermilion River and finding refuge with some generous people in Vermilion.
One cold night in December 1923, the orphanage caught fire. Nobody knows how the blaze started. Some people say that one of the orphans accidentally knocked over an oil lamp. Others say Mr. Sprunger started the fire because he hated the children and wanted to collect insurance money.
That night, Gore Orphanage burned to the ground with all the children trapped inside. The fire swept through the old building, springing from one room to another. The children desperately tried to escape the inferno, but the stairs were blocked by flames.
The dreadful cries and screams of the children trapped inside the blazing building could be heard by horrified onlookers. The deadly fire continued to burn until the screams finally fell silent and the orphanage was reduced to a charred, smoking shell. The blaze had claimed the lives of over 100 poor orphan children.
Ever since that night, people have seen strange apparitions and ghostly figures lurking in the field where Gore Orphanage once stood. They say that if you go there late at night, you can still hear the sounds of children screaming and pleading for help. The air is still filled with the smell of burning flesh and roasted children.
Despite the fact that the site is now a vacant field, many people have heard the sound of doors opening and shutting and footsteps walking across wooden floors. There is also an old tire swing hanging from a tree near the site where they say you can see a ghostly young boy swinging silently back and forth.