Clinton Road (located in West Milford, New Jersey) has spooked locals and visitors for decades. Here’s why.
Just up the hill from the old iron smelter, a sign near the start of Clinton Road explains its history.
In September, the Roadtrippers blog asked a semi-rhetorical question: "Is this the scariest road in America?" The subject was Clinton Road, a narrow, north-south running strip just shy of 10 miles long through West Milford, New Jersey.
Most of the land on either side of the road is undeveloped and densely wooded, which is basically all that is required for a place to be fairly terrifying once the sun sets, and maybe even a little before. And then there are the rumors of ghost sightings, escaped animal hybrids — leftover, it's said, from a 1970s Warner Brothers theme park called "Jungle Habitat" — and Satanist gatherings that have centered around the road and its surroundings for decades.
There are three major hotspots (or, let's say, "hauntspots," haha) along Clinton Road:
1. A 19th century iron smelter said to double as a Druid temple
2. The "Ghost Boy Bridge" whose namesake is said to do various spooky things with coins you leave for him
3. The ruins of Cross Castle, built in 1905, burnt to the ground and much later, maybe, used for gatherings of witches and devil worshippers.
As if that were not enough, visitors have also reported encountering "phantom trucks" that chased their cars only to vanish at the end of the road. So, to see exactly how haunted it felt on a near-to-Halloween Saturday in October, I — an avowed ghost enthusiast — visited Clinton Road. I went during the daytime "so that I could take pictures," by which I mean I was too scared to go at night.
The "Druidic Temple"
Why It's Creepy: possible Druid ritual site
As I was informed by the signpost standing uphill from it, this furnace is all that's left of an ironmaking community built here in the 19th century. It's closed off, sort of, but the section of fence directly in front of the furnace's mouth has been broken and trampled flat, presumably by other weirdos like me. Wikipedia says it's a rumored site for "Druid rituals," but what even is a Druid? My friend Matt asked me and I pretended to know, but I didn't. I was like, "They're Masons or something." That isn't actually true. Historically, Druids were priest-philosophers, but in modern terms I think it just means "people who seem like they could be into human sacrifice."
