Haunted Farms Genoa

A few miles north of Genoa, Colorado is the old haunted house, well it used to be. Now it is marked by a few trees. Some years ago it was torn down and only a few memories float over the ground. Here the local school kids had decorated the old abandoned homestead for a number of years. The youthful fertile imagination abounded of many tall tales of ghosts roaming the place.

There were stories of figures standing in the windows watching passing cars. The house was built of white block and the shadows of the moon would dance over the house. Shadows would flit and hover in the trees out back. There were spooks that lived in the abandoned farm house and the school kids built the legend larger each year it was decorated.

There is an abandoned farm to the southeast of this haunted house that also has stories of ghosts and mysterious lights. From here many a scary story was heard in the halls of the schoolhouse. There would be times a girl would blanche out from having been there and a boy would have a blank stare looking off into nothing.

One has to go back to 1911 to understand the stories of the place when it was homesteaded.

The young settler had traveled to the area in 1910 and found his place to homestead. He returned back east, married his sweetheart and they set out for the new town of Genoa to begin their life. Here was his dream, a small creek with a spring on it, gentle rolling land around it for farming and the creek bottom for his cattle. A house was built, the land was plowed and out buildings were put up. The children were born and the farm was prospering. Life was good for the settler. He had a wife, children, and a place to call his own. Nearby was a school for his children that he helped to build. His oldest boy would lead his younger brother and sister to school and they would come home at night and do their chores. Then in the 1920’s influenza struck the plains. First it struck down his middle boy, then his daughter, oldest boy, and wife all died within weeks of each other. The settler dug graves for his family on the bluff overlooking the creek. With his family gone, he left the land and disappeared. No one knows where he went, yet on the bluff were the small markers of the graves.

Another farmer bought the land at an auction and that is when the ghost stories began. He was working the land when heard the squeal of children playing. Looking on the bluff he saw shadows bounding through the grass. The farmer let it pass and said nothing. That was only time he had heard or seen anything. He said to himself, “It is just my imagination.” Some years later his son found it a good place to bring his girl friend to park. He could drive along the creek bottom on a shelf below the rise and it was protected and out of sight from the road. A few trees had grown up and it was a quiet place. Fall was approaching and they had been to the barn dance down the road. The boy and girl were giggling as they bounced over the road.

Turning off into his father’s place and rolling down the embankment to the trees they went. He had some cigarettes and some shine and they were going to enjoy it before going on home. Suddenly the girl shrieked, hair was standing on end, her fingers were pointing across the creek to the bluff. The boy’s jaw dropped. A large figure stood on the bluff, hands in the air and crying. A lament that pierced the soul, traveled up the spine and bent a strong heart. There by the graves the figure floated, wailing into the night, screeching echoes floating over the land. The car jumped to life, wheels spinning, up the hill they fled, wanting to get away from this place.

Next week at school, one should of heard the stories. Like wildfire the lore spread growing larger with each telling. Soon there were other kids going out there at night, parking and watching, nothing. The boy and girl soon became a butt of jokes. With the story and seeing the place the farm became a popular place for the local kids to party. Being protected and out of sight they could party away and make jokes about the ghosts.

A couple of years later the local kids were out at the farm for a Saturday night party. There was the liquor, music and boisterous bragging conversations. With the full moon and a calm night, this was a pleasant night to be out. With midnight approaching a wail shattered the reverie of the kids. Hair was standing up, stomachs were dropping, hearts were pounding as the wail rolled over the bottom slicing the moonlight.

There on the far bluff was a large white figure, floating over the graves, tears rolling, voice raised to a wail. Motors roared to life, kids were piling into cars, and wheels screeching up the hill. Other kids stood there frozen, time had stopped, jaws were gasping. Never before had they seen anything like it or heard. School the next week was abuzz and more curios people ventured out to the farm.

Today the farm is much like the schoolhouse, a vacant lot marked by an old fence.