How To Tell If A Truck Stop Is Haunted

There is a deserted truck stop on Route 66 in Missouri, and it is rumored to be haunted.  Since I lead Route 66 bus tours for St. Louis Community College, I needed to investigate the rumors.

I turned to the Internet, googling “paranormal activity” and “Tri-County Truck Stop”.  I quickly found out that there are two main groups of people posting about paranormal activity on the Internet: believers and debunkers.

The believers would post that the Tri-County Truck Stop is haunted.

The debunkers would then post that there is no such thing as ghosts, and believers are jerks.

The believers would then post that all debunkers are idiots.

Jerk.  Idiot.  Jerk.  Idiot.  This seems to be the same path that many discussions follow on the Internet, especially political discussions.  It is not productive.

I needed to find something convincing.  I needed to find a group of people without an agenda.  So, I searched for former employees of the truck stop.  These people simply report what happened when they worked at the Tri-County.

What they reported convinced me that there was paranormal activity.

On my Route 66 tours, when we get to the deserted Tri-County Truck Stop, I have the bus driver park so that people can see the clean sweeping art deco lines of the building.  The plywood in the windows makes the building expressionless.

Then I read about former employees who:

-        Had things hurled at them when they were the only person in the place.

-        Saw a man stabbing a lady at the top of the stairs to the roof one night, and found an unknown red substance on the stairwell in the morning.

-        Saw the lights flicker when a fellow employee said she did not believe in ghosts.

-        Watched empty chairs dance in a circle

-        Were tapped on the shoulder when they were the only one in the bathroom

-        Took some photos, and a faint image of boy reaching out with his hands appeared in a photo --- which freaked out the photo-development lady at Walgreens

I hope that this list of events will convince the people on my bus tour that the place is haunted.

So, how do you know if a truck stop is haunted?  Ask the staff.  

Or you could come back to the Tri-County on October 31 –-- the one night of the year when they will let you spend the night ghost hunting in the truck stop.

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In this 5-minute video, Billy Connelly, a Scottish comedian, drives Route 66 in Missouri and visits a secret collection...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqYk7LFtHUw

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail