Documented folklore from the Club 49 map, told straight and sourced.
The oldest ghost story in Wisconsin runs along the old military road through the lead country between Dodgeville and Ridgeway, and it has been running since the 1840s, when this was a rough mining district full of young men far from home. The Ridgeway Ghost does not keep one shape: it is a boy, an old woman, a headless man, a flame, a thing that climbs onto the back of your wagon. It was blamed for deaths on the road for a century. The diggings, the stone taverns and the road are all still here.
Ridgeway and the old military road (Iowa County). Source: The state’s oldest and most persistent ghost tradition, from the lead rush. The Club 49 map pins this legend at its documented country, beside the real mines, active claims, land status and modeled honey holes of the same ground. Open the free map and go stand in the story.
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