Devil’s Gate - Libertyville, Illinois

One day, a maniac broke into the school and abducted several of the girls. He killed each one and mounted their severed heads on the spikes of the gate. Every full moon, the heads reappear on the rusted spikes.

The Devil's Gate is now known as the Doddridge Farm, passed through several incarnations as a summer camp. In 1926, Katherine Kreigh Budd Memorial Home for Children happened.

Between 1936 to the early 1980's, the Catholic home became a summer camp for boys, St. Francis boys camp. On May 11, 1961, two year old, Glen Bottorff drowned in the river across the grounds of the not-yet-opened camp. The gate to St. Francis still sits at the entrance. (Yikes.)

The Park District owned the land in 1992 causing them to tear down all the buildings.

I would honestly love to visit this place at night. I'd probably bring a lot of friends so in case something happens, I can just ditch. Every man for himself, right? I think that's the wrong saying.

Cemeteries are always something fun to go to at night. You probably think I'm crazy, but it's true. The story is pretty creepy, which makes wanting to visit ever better.

These places will be on my bucket list for the summer.

Why I chose this as my blog topic!

The reason why I chose this to be my blog topic this year is because I'm really into spooky stuff. Last year I chose horror movies. Ghosts excite me. I'm always going to haunted houses and to the asylum in Bartonville for tours or to watch movies.

I think it'd be pretty cool to teach you about some of the haunted places around Illinois. I grew up with books about haunted places and my favorite book was the weirdest places in Illinois.

The first time I went to the asylum I was maybe 8. I went to the graveyard and learned more about the patients and that basically got me to go to the asylum every chance that I got when I visited Illinois and then I finally moved back here and I would go to the movie nights and the haunted houses across the asylum.

One night I will pay 100 dollars to spend a night there. I'll most likely take my Ouija board there and record everything.

But yeah, that's why I chose this topic.