A tuberculosis outbreak struck several mill workers in the late fall of 1919. To contain the disease and protect the flour the town needed for food, the infected workers were quarantined to a long narrow cellar on the south side of the mill basement, which could only be accessed by a door in the adjoining sawmill. When the loved ones went to check on their ill, the door to the cellar had been sealed from the inside and a strange symbol was burned on the door. When they pried open the door, they found all of the quarantined had died, even though it had only been a few days, which is very unusual for tuberculosis. Terrified, the town decided to close the mill for several weeks leaving the corpses until they were determined what to do with the dead.

 

Even though science had identified the bacterium that causes tuberculosis in the 1880s, folk traditions of vampirism causing the deaths were still accepted among many communities and the quick deaths fueled this theory. If a vampire were responsible, they would rise and strike again, unless decapitation or the bodies of the dead were burned. The scientific reason prevailed and it was determined the bodies should be buried. Yet, an unimaginable horror met the town when they went to collect their dead, which is best described by a journal entry, which states, “We gathered what we could of the remains to be buried and did the best we could to clean the rest, but all eventually agreed to leave the worst of it walled off and wait for time to rid that place of the horrors we could not.” It is still unknown if some of the townsfolk, who believed in vampires, took matters into their own hands or if something more sinister was at work.

The area remained sealed until 2022, when it was reopened without knowing the history. After numerous reports from those who worked in the area of strange activity, the owners looked into the history of the walled area, and this is what they found.