Legend has it that along Route 66 between Weatherford and El Reno, Oklahoma the ghost of an old, humpbacked man can be spotted. He wears a fedora and a trenchcoat and is most often reported on rainy or foggy nights. Some tales recount the man in a "phantom rider" or "vanishing hitch-hiker" fashion: The man is picked up alongside the road, but doesn’t speak to the driver at all. Then, after some miles, the strange passenger suddenly attempts to leap from the vehicle. When the driver opens the door to let him out, he has vanished. The perplexed driver then glances up the road to see the man walking along the road – several miles ahead. Another legend recounts how a driver thinks they have just struck the elderly man as he was crossing the road, but when the driver gets out, the struck man is nowhere to be seen.
Legend of the Avilla death tree during the Civil War, a Confederate bushwhacker was killed during fighting at the southern edge of Avilla, Missouri. When he was found months later, half covered in fallen leaves and snow, his rotted skull had a large bullet hole and his body had deteriorated to a putrid skeleton. Instead of burial, the town citizen militia hung the head from a tree as a warning to other enemies, near an old road leading past an apple orchard into Avilla. The ghastly tree became know as the ”death tree” and the skull hung for over a year from a tree limb for all to see. The tree is said to have stopped producing fruit and large numbers of black crows made it their constant perch. The skull and corpse mysteriously disappeared at the end of the war, and as far as anyone knows the body was never buried (no one knows what happened to the skeleton). (Legend) Since that time a restless, headless phantom has been seen by locals over the past 150 years roaming the fields surrounding, and sometimes in Avilla after dark, and he seems most active on cool autumn nights (he was killed in the fall, and some believe it was on all-hallow’s eve, but no one knows the date for certain).The ghost has always been described as a lurking, headless shadowy figure in a long duster and an antique firearm slung on his back. The phantom bushwhacker sometimes stands and searches with outstretched hands but generally tries to avoid detection by crawling or lying low to the ground, and he has also been seen carrying objects in his skeletal hands. He has been nicknamed ”rotten johnny reb” by the locals. It has been rumored that if you can find that very old apple tree, under certain light conditions you can see the object of the phantom’s relentless search (and possibly send him back to the other side).The tree was reportedly at the edge of an apple charred but I have heard that the actual death tree was a ”hedge apple tree” (Osage orange, which was used as ”fences” at that time) and not really an apple tree, and some very old ones do exist on the roads leading to town.
Locals might ask you to think twice before venturing into the lost homes of Avilla. “Shadow Folk” have often been spotted wandering through the halls of abandoned places, through windows and even occasionally, strolling down the empty roads of the town. To anyone who might find yourself facing down a shadow person in the near future, don’t worry. The locals say these specters aren’t dangerous and probably won’t even take notice. Shadow folk are believed to be mere impressions of those who lived there years ago.
Storefronts once lined this strip in Avilla, Missouri, one of the living “ghost towns of old Route 66.” The Avilla House, built in 1868 (far right) and an early Route 66 era Auto Shop, Tom Barbado’s Garage (second stone structure from left) can be seen in this 2000 photo before being demolished. Old Flo’s Tavern (white building) still stands today next to the abandoned stone IOOF Lodge and (Old French’s) grocery store (center).
Right near the Missouri River was the small river town of Overton. In a story told by folklorist Bob Dyer, an old man and woman took in travelers, giving them room and board. But the couple were very poor and one night, when a man stopped in with a purse full of silver and gold coins, they decided to murder him and take the money. They dropped the body into the river and their lives changed for the better: they built a new house and they prospered. A few years later the woman was on her deathbed, and she made the husband promise to keep their secret and never marry again. He agreed, and she passed away.
A year later the man went to St. Louis and returned with a young wife. The local people had never liked him, and decided to give the couple a shivaree (a mock celebration), keeping them up all night with catcalls and drums. The man stomped down to the front porch where he was giving the people a piece of his mind when he stopped, completely silent. Everyone turned to see a black carriage drawn by a black horse coming up the drive. It drove slowly to the front of the house, where it stopped and the door swung open. The men could see an old woman in the carriage staring straight ahead, as pale as death and dressed in black. Slowly the man got into the carriage, the door shut and the vehicle drove off into the night. Not long after that people reported seeing a black carriage and horse on the back roads of Overton, where it is an omen of danger. As recently as a few years ago, the carriage appeared near the railroad tracks off Route 98 one night and the car’s driver stopped just before a train rattled by.
Haunts of Missouri 