10/04/2025
THE CURSE OF BLACK RIVER FALLS
What happened in the town of Black River Falls, Wisconsin, between 1890 and 1910? What caused the once pleasant and thriving small town to become a place of death, horror, and strangeness? Was it the collapse of the economy? It’s true that the mines and lumber industries shut down at that time, leaving people without jobs, and causing the banks and many businesses to fail. Illness spread and people turned to alcohol for comfort. Bad weather devastated the local crops and the cold, bleak winters caused starvation and anguish. Talk of witchcraft and devil worship circulated among the residents. During this terrible period, the seemingly doomed inhabitants of Black River Falls surrendered to su***de, murder, destruction, and depravity.
But why? We may never know.
In 1973, Michael Levy published WISCONSIN DEATH TRIP, a collection of photographs taken by Charles Van Schaick between 1890 and 1910 that are accompanied by newspaper clippings from the time period. Van Schaick was a local photographer who captured bleak images of the town and its residents and painted a grim picture of life in Black River Falls during this horrific time in the town’s history. In 1999, a documentary of the same name used photos and recreations to tell the town’s bizarre story. I recommend both of them if you can track them down because the brief story that I’m recounting here cannot truly capture just how nightmarish life in the town had become.
Black River Falls -- and the surrounding area -- will always remember the many tragic, macabre events that occurred in the span of just two ominous decades.
Was it really a "curse?" Or did the book and film simply focus on only the bad things that happened in the area, making it seem worse than it was? You decide...
* A 60-year-old woman found a "small sore" on her back. Believing that the unknown mass was cancer and would eventually kill her, she attempted to remove it herself. She doused herself in kerosene and then went out in the backyard and set herself on fire.
* Mrs. John Larson, the wife of a Black River Falls farmer, went insane and began to believe that “devils” were after her. She took her three children to Lake St. Croix and drowned them, one by one. John Larson only found the bodies of two of his children. The third dead child was never found.
* After suspicions were raised about botched funerary practices led to an investigation at Rosedale Cemetery, it was discovered that Sarah Smith had been accidentally buried alive. She had been in some kind of “trance” when she died. Her body was found in her coffin, twisted onto her side. She had bitten half of her fingers off when she woke and realized her fate.
* After the banks in town failed, a distraught farmer named Christ Wold decided to take his own life. He dug a hole in the ground, filled it with the dynamite that he used to remove tree stumps, stuck his head in the opening, and lit the fuse.
* John Anderson, age 13, ran away from home with his 10-year-old brother. They shot and killed the owner of a farmer on the far outskirts of town and took over the property. When the farmer’s brother came to visit, the younger of the boys confessed to the crime, but John fled, leading sheriff’s deputies on a chase. A deputy was killed in the pursuit but John was caught and sentenced to life in prison.
* In the early 1890s, a diphtheria epidemic swept through town, ravaging the residents. Many children died, which subsequently caused the schools to close. Residents burned down the homes of anyone who was sick, hoping to stop the spread of the disease. The epidemic led to more su***des and murders – caused by grief and panic – than deaths caused by the illness.
* A homeless drifter who had the bad luck to pass through town was given food and shelter for two days by the Wright family. When one of the children referred to the man as a “tramp,” he attacked them and ransacked the house looking for money. After fleeing the home, he wandered down to a nearby pond and shot himself in the head.
* A group of traveling drifters – “gypsies” in the parlance of the era – arrived in the community one weekend. More than 50 of them invaded the Sheldon farm and decapitated 18 of the owner’s chickens. The farmer, believing that the Devil had taken control of his property, burned the farm to the ground. He didn’t know it, but the gypsies had already left. They were camped in woods outside of town enjoying a feast of fresh chicken.
* Lydia Berger, age 15, set fire to her father’s home and barn. She did so out of “revenge” because her father had beaten her for sneaking away to a carnival. When a kind neighbor took the girl in, she paid back their charity by setting fire to their property, too. She set several other buildings on fire before she was finally arrested for arson.
* One night, a new father, after consuming too much alcohol, tried to settle a crying a child. When the infant continued to wail, he beat the baby. He then tried to strangle his wife when she intervened. Neighbors rushed to the scene and managed to rescue the wife, but the baby had already died.
* A young boy named Nestor Provancher visited a traveling hypnotist that came through town. Afterward, the boy was unable to speak louder than a whisper for the next four months. Doctors believed that the boy was still under some sort of “hypnotic trance,” which didn’t permit him to talk as he once had. Nestor remained mute for several more months and then his normal voice returned.
* The n**e body of a local housewife, Mrs. Armbruster, was found on the side of the road a few miles from town. She had recently lost a child and the authorities believed that she had wandered away from home in a fit of delirium and froze to death.
* A young man from the community proposed to a local girl but she refused to marry him. Enraged, the scorned man shot her three times and then turned the gun on himself. Another man in town publicly attacked and killed his ex-wife and her family after their divorce. Around the same time, a teenage bride-to-be was institutionalized after her fiancé left her. She later committed su***de. Soon after, a 50-year-old man hanged himself after he was served with divorce papers.
* Mary Sweeney, who the newspapers called the “Wisconsin Window Smasher,” was a former schoolteacher who ran away from her husband and began frequently using co***ne to “quiet her nerves.” Apparently, it didn’t work. She managed to destroy over $50,000 worth of glass in a wild crime spree. She was jailed more than 100 times and was eventually sent to an asylum.
* Mr. Axel, a local farmer, cut his wife’s throat one morning and then killed himself. There were various rumors that went around about “domestic issues” between the couple but the few who had recent dealings with the farmer attributed the murder-su***de to an “aberration of the mind.”
* A farmer who lived near Red Cedar Lake claimed that a 40-foot-long reptile appeared out of the water and carried away one of his hogs.
* Another farmer, Frederick Windex, committed su***de by drowning himself where his young daughter had been accidentally drowned two years before.
* In 1891, a well-known doctor named Joquish began telling a story of how his soul separated from his body and went up to heaven, where he met and talked with his dead father. The doctor, everyone agreed, was a man of “sound mind,” but his story caused his relatives to fear that he had become “somewhat insane.”
And the stories went on and on – a seemingly inexhaustible list that chronicled the horrors visited on the region during this strange period in its history. Again, we have to ask what happened to Black River Falls? And the only reply can be – we will never know.
For more -- listen to the "Black River Falls" Episode of the AMERICAN HAUNTINGS PODCAST!
