T O W E R   O F    T E R R O R

Greater is our terror of the unknown --Titus Livius

+Tower Of Terror+

Tower Of Terror, Madison, Idaho

explored by: Shady & Liz, March 2002 (photos by Shady)

 

While visiting my bestest girly-pal Liz in Idaho, we naturally set aside a day for exploring "lost" stuff... and boy, oh boy, did we get lost. We started out in search of a ghost town of dubious existence, with only a scrap of info and a slight idea of it's whereabouts. We had gotten pretty lost and had pulled over near an old abandoned mill to poke around inside. It was so chilly our breath was coming out in vapor-puffs; the sky was smoky-gray and bleak while a crunchy blanket of icy snow covered everything in sight. We were wandering around the rear rooms of the mill when Liz caught sight of something intriguing in the distance, through an open doorway- a strange, sky-high, ramshackle tower loomed off in a desolate field out back. It immediately drew the both of us with it's mysterioso-vibes like moths to that proverbial light...

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

We couldn't head over there fast enough, hurrying over the slippery ice and snow along the lonely railroad tracks toward the weird tower. As we got closer... we saw the words for the first time... "TOWER OF TERROR"... scrawled in blood-red across the side of the spooky skyscraping structure.

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

We realized that we had discovered what must have been used as a haunted house attraction at some point in time. The insanely tall, narrow building- the "Tower of Terror" itself- was covered in a skin of cracked and peeling corrugated sheet metal; we couldn't see all the way inside but it appeared to have at least 6 stories or more.

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

An enclosed courtyard sat flush alongside the Tower itself, surrounded by a high stone wall. We peeked through a few cracks and openings to see what looked like some kind of mock-cemetery inside the courtyard, with thick metal pipes running criss-crossed overhead- perhaps for use in some of the special effects. As Liz and I circled the site looking for a way to get inside, we found many heavily-barred doors, ladders that led up to nowhere, and a smaller shed that looked as if it may have been a ticket booth or maintenance shed.

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

We also found an abandoned car sitting just to the side of the Tower; it was buried up to the hood in snow. Since there hadn't been any snow in the past few days, we deduced that the car must have been sitting there for awhile. Kind of spooky to find a car- clean and apparently in decent shape- just sitting there, buried in snow, alongside a deserted haunted house out in the middle of pretty-much-nowhere. We both gave a little semi-nervous glance back toward where we had left our own car, then at each other, before moving on. After trying out some other possible entrance points without luck, we finally found a sort of gap between the sheet-metal walls where we could just squeeze through. We found ourselves wedged into a tiny sliver of space between a structural wall of the Tower and a false wall of sheet metal which formed a very narrow, dim, and hazardous corridor- the canvas "roof"   just above our heads was sagging and tearing- heavily weighed down with giant mounds of snow, it was in serious danger of collapsing and burying us both under tons of freezing snow, sharp sheets of torn metal, and jagged chunks of splintered wood and broken stone. And then there were the icicles...

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

Hanging precariously from the canvas "roof", they were thicker and longer than my arm and  tapered down to many deadly-sharp spear-points. We had to kind of duck under them as we moved along, and I kept half-expecting to be impaled when one of them came loose as I crept under it! And then there was the one that looked like a giant, skeletal hand... quite a trip. At the end of the corridor we found one spot where there was an opening into the Tower itself, but the only way in was to slide down an unsturdy plastic slide into pitch-blackness. The slide was cracked at the place where it fastenend to the ledge, and we knew there was no other openings to get in or out of the place once inside- if that slide came down as we went in, we would be stuck down there. As tempted as we were, we bypassed trying to venture inside because of the unsafe conditions, our remote location and freezing weather, and the fact that nobody even knew where we were... better safe than sorry. We did catch glimpses of a skeleton on a mattress down there- hopefully it was a a prop and not the owner of the car outside.

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

Foiled by the unstable slide, we pushed on and found a way into the walled-in courtyard. A hanging specter greeted us as we entered the "cemetery" within the enclosure. Mock grave markers poked up crookedly through the snow banks; looking back up at the looming Tower from inside the creepy courtyard was quite a view. We also noticed that there were a few rather odd doors on the second and third-floor levels that opened onto thin air and a sheer, nasty drop into the graveyard below.

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

+Tower Of Terror+

After poking around in the courtyard a little longer, we decided to take one more look around the outer perimeters of the Tower site. We found many No Trespassing signs and barred doors, but no other possible entrances or other clues. We had been out in the freezing temperatures for a pretty long time at this point and we couldn't feel our extremities any longer, so we reluctantly decided to head back to the car, leaving the towering empty spookhouse to cast it's immense shadow far across the ghostly-white snowfield.

This was a great find, one of my all-time favorites.... partly because it was just a really cool site in itself, but also because of the way we found it totally and completely by accident- a very happy accident- cause after all, that's the whole essence of getting lost! *grin*

Do you have any background information or stories to tell about this spooky site?

 

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