An Orphanage. A fire. A cool, spooky name. It's no surprise that the legends surrounding the site of what was once Gore Orphanage is fertile fodder for folklorists and ghosthunters alike. What really happened at Gore Orphanage? Some claim to know the answers... Some claim that no one will ever know...
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Gore Orphanage
What Really Happened at Gore Orphange (Lorain County Library)
Gore Orphange Investigation


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Contributed by Jason

bjthebear85@hotmail.com

I am writing in response to what I have read about the Gore Orphanage tale. The first thing that I would like to mention, is that the location is in Vermilion, not South Amherst. There is quite a difference between the two towns. I am a resident of Birmingham which is about 4 miles from the Gore Orphange site and a substitue teacher at the nearby high school. I have lived hear most of my life(although i am only 23) but believe I can offer a little insight on the subject.
Because of my love for fishing I am especially drawn to this sight, therefore I have quite a bit of knowledge about it. The site itself might be the spookiest place that i have ever been to, and I have continually heard stories from others who live and fish at this place.
One of the things that people overlook is the actual site of the Orphanage. There is a lot of land to get lost in. I until recently was not sure where it was because before I would never get out of my truck at this site. Whether or not it is haunted or not is a different story. Old timers in this neck of the woods will give you all sorts of different accounts as to what happened. All I know is that I still to this day get creeps when I drive through at night. Looking up at the overhanging branches from the road and the tree filled hills that lead right next to the road and the pitch blackness that accompanies it, I think would send chills up anyones spine. However, The only experience with ghosts i have had down there is the glowing of deer eyes in my headlights, that can in a flash look like some thing very extraordinary.
Another note is that if you travel down Dean Rd. from rt 113 to get to the Gore Orphange, you will go over and old wooden bridge that might be scarier then the orphanage, that many in the area associate with the orphange as being haunted by the murderer of the children in the fire.
If you have any questions you would like to ask feel free to e-mail me at bjthebear85@hotmail.com

Contributed by RatL316Snk@aol.com

RatL316Snk@aol.com

Just got back from visiting the Gore Orphanage on Saturday July 21, and i must say yet again that it was a disappointment. Isn't really too hard to find if you have a clue as to where it's at but all it was was a bunch of square rocks (some stacked on top of each other) and a couple of knocked down pillars that were very corroded. There is one pillar standing in the front right corner of the woods, i would say the coolest part about it.. which isn't very cool to begin with. Bunch of trash everywhere, some clothes.. even some kind of religious notes on the ground.. No smell of burning flesh, no little ghost kids, no footsteps from old man Gore, no police either.. which was what i was scared about the most. That's bout it.

Contributed by RockandrollOutlw@aol.com

RockandrollOutlw@aol.com

It was a cold autumn night in october of 1998. Me all my friends and my new girl friend at the time decided to take a ride down to the so called Gore Orphanage. My best friend and I have driven down there many times. Only to experience odd flashes of orange lights far of in the distance of the woods. We thought it would be just another chance to scare people who were unfamiliar with this place.(it wasn't!). My friend Ben and I were planning on how we were going to freak everyone out. We pulled on to the bridge just before the turn into the foundation when the oil light came on. No big deal we parked and got out of the car only to hear a scream. It was the annoying girl Heather from the backseat. Pointing at the end of the bridge where there was a dead black cat. That too was more chance to freak all of them out. I lit up a smoke and looked to the sky only to see a giant ring around the moon. Not a milky rain ring, I'm talking a giant hollow ring. This was a bit out of the ordinary. Not in my 22 years have I ever seen anything like that in the sky. Every one got a little more uneasy as we studied the giant ring. Oh well that has nothing to do with the legend. We all got back into the car and proceeded down the dark eerie road to the woods of the foundation. Ben and I were probably trying to score so we decided to go ballsy. We got out of the car knowing everyone would beg us to stay in. Off we went toward the woods of the foundation actually very hesitant. Looking at my watch reading 12:30am we slowly made our way. As we got into the shallow woods we stopped to listen yet heard not a thing. Only then going from a cold somber night came a furious cold autumn wind. Looking at each other we freaked but stayed strong as we went further into the moonlit nightmare. As we glance back the car parking lights seemed to be a mile away. Just then I was overcome with the sound of angry screams of what I know honestly was little kids screaming about 200 ft away. But I needed to say nothing as Ben went tearing out toward the car. I followed only to hope that it only seemed i was running in slow motion. Finally making it to the car we both knew what the other unmistakenly heard. It was 12:35 am and i knew then no little kids would be playing out in the middle of a deserted field. With the rest of the girls crying in the car we jumped in and locked the doors. I jammed the keys into the ignition and twisted only to find it was dead. We all panicked i didn't know what was wrong. After a minute i noticed that the car wasn't in park at all. Out of 6 years of driving never have i left it in neutral. Finally it started and I hauled ass out with everyone freaking out. The ride back to North Olmsted that night was a quiet eerie one. Some will say it wasn't voices that we heard but that of the turnpike in the distance. But don't forget we have been there a hundred times before and its real. (very real).

Contributed by Rick and Brenda

wildtiger65@centurytel.net

I've been down to Gore Orphanage a few times and nothing has ever happened. But tonight it was a little different. We were walking around exploring just before dark and my neice looked at me and asked me if I was smoking a cigarette, I wasn't. She said she seen what she thought was smoke go past me. Then it just disappeard, but it came back and next thing I know she was chasing it around. I saw it briefly but then couldn't find it again. She must have chased it for a good 2 minutes. The whole time we were there we never once felt uncomfortable.
We did take lots of pictures but won't know for a few days if anything showed up on them. This is where it gets weird though. After we left there, we went to Maple Grove cemetery to take more pictures. We found a site that drew us to it and was saddened because there were 4 children that had all died within 1 week.
It was later when we got home that we discovered that the gravesite is the one that belongs to the Wilber children that first died at the place that is now known as Gore Orphanage. We had no idea. We also didn't know the names of the people who even lived there till we came home and decided to do some more research on Gore Orphanage and Maple Grove.
That's when we all got a chill and were totally freaked out.
If we get any interesting pictures, I'll be sure to share them with you.
Just had to share that.
Brenda

Contributed by Rune

Runewars@aol.com

I have a story for you. I will be changing everyone's name just because I haven't talked to them in a little while and I and I don't want to upset anyone.
One night a little over a year ago all five of us decided to go out to gore orphanage. We knew it was in Vermilion, but we weren't sure the exact spot. So we go to Gore Rd. but at the intersection we turned right instead of left onto Gore rd. On this stretch of the road you go down 2-3 miles and there is a sharp turn left with some sort of fenced off property right at the corner. There is also a large boulder to the right of the gate. On that particular night there was a black and white cat sitting on it. It watched us drive by and stop shortly after the turn. So we decided to get out of our cars. Sharon, Chris, Sheila, and I were in Sheila's car, and Jason was in his car, he was in front of us. When we got out of the car I had seen a car coming so I had told Jason to step out of the road. When we looked there wasn't a car in sight, upon later driving in that direction there wasn't a drive that was that close or that deep that we wouldn't haves seen movement, or lights or something in that direction of the road. So we hopped back into our cars, and went in different directions. Upon our return to the corner that cat was still seated upon the boulder. Mind you it was in the sitting position and watched our every move and at least 15-20 minutes had gone by with it still there. We hadn't found anything so we went to catch up with Jason we did and we decided to go the other direction in the road from the intersection. So we all went the other direction since Jason hadn't found anything. We drove right past the actual turn off for the orphanage not knowing that that had been it. So we then didn't find it, so we go back to the original side of the intersection, I can't remember our reasoning, however before we had gotten to the bend in the road, there was a rather ordinary house on the right side of the road. We were following Jason on the road when a cat very closely resembling the same cat on the boulder ran and stopped in the middle of the road between us. Sheila's car died, and the cat was hissing at us another car drove past us from the opposite side of the road the cat ran back to the side of the road with the house on it, still hissing at the car as Sheila desperately tried to get it started. Then the cat darted across the road, as soon as it was in the woods the car started again. We hurried to catch Jason and get the heck out there realizing that the cat was gone, and in the time that we were gone from that spot until the time we reached the spot in front of the house the cat couldn't have traveled a mile to a mile and a half without running at full speed.

Anyway that's our story.
Rune

Contributed by WetCheesePuff@aol.com

WetCheesePuff@aol.com

When I was in High School about 6 years ago, a bunch of us would go out to "Gore Orphanage" almost every Saturday night for a few months, "hoping" to find something. We heard noises, thought we possibly saw things, the whole bit. Here's thing that though: When you know that you are going to a "haunted" site that you've heard stories about, you automatically have expectations. If you expect to hear something, your mind will make you hear it. If you expect to see something paranormal, your mind will make you believe you saw it. Having these expectations and the feeling of fear to go along with it, you will in fact believe that you are seeing and hearing things. When you are in a state of fear or panic, you're not fully aware of your motor skills, making it possible to put your car in "neutral" instead of "park" without realizing it, only to think that the "spirits" of the site are playing tricks on you, or to go to start your car and you can't. It's like when it's late at night, and you're walking to your front door and for some reason you're suddenly filled with a sense of fear that someone is behind you or that you're being followed so you want to get in the house as fast as you can...it's pretty hard to get that key into the slot and open the door quickly because you're panicked, isn't it? The Wilbur children did die there, so naturally their spirits would come to pay a visit now and then, but the four of them died from a disease...not in a fire, so there's no ghosts running around in flames and what not, and If there is, then they're just lost and in the wrong location ( lol ). There was an orphanage there called Light of Hope Orphanage, which after 13 years closed, not burnt down. There was, however, an elementary school not too far from there...Lake View I think, that did have a fire and some children and teachers were trapped inside and met with their fiery fate. There was no "Old Man Gore." Gore Orphanage Rd. (originally named Gore Rd.) was named that because the triangular piece of land that the Swift/Wilbur mansion, and the later on Light of Hope Orphanage sat on was referred to (in architectural terms) as a "Gore." I am not a skeptic. I have had my own encounters with paranormal entities. But reading some of these accounts of Gore Orphanage and knowing that they are MAJOR fabrications of what was encountered drives me nuts, so I had to speak my piece in response, being that I've been there close to a dozen times with no stories to come back with.