I've heard many rumors about the small town of Athens, Texas. i am go to college there and most of the other students and teachers have been talking about the secrets about this town. There have been reports of witchcraft all over the county, but in Athens they say that there are underground tunnels that are in the shape of a pentagram. There is also a park that many ritualistic sacrifices have taken place. I would think this was ridicules, but our instructor who is a preachers wife and a very respectable woman agrees with all these rumors. Also, one of my close friends has said that there has never been a tornado to ever have touched down in the town because of the spells cast on the town. i am rather curious if anyone else has ever heard anything about this strange town and it's many secrets.

Rumors are fun, arn't they.

If you don't get to see them and show us picturew... I'll be very dissapointed in you mister!

I live near athens... I've never heard of anything that you just said. In regards to the preachers wife... take it with a grain of salt... we are in the Bible Belt remember lol. I think I would have heard something.

m night shamalon might make a movie about it--is athens Tx cursed ?--LOL

i thought it was athens ohio that had cemetaries around it in the shape of a pentagram.

It sounds just like a movie I have here called The Lottery..
Hire it, watch it. lol..

you never know what might go on in a small town if the whole town is in on it.

Hello People..
I live in Athens,TX and I have lived here for quite awhile and Yes i have heard all about this and even witnesses a few myself. I have been to the place you talk about where rituals take place... it is called Fullers Park .. it use to belong to a preacher of a baptist church in the center of Athens ... he has been dead along time and no one ever bought the land... him and his wife was also buried there and there graves stones still stand with heavy log chains going around them on posts making like a fence. there is also an old well and a house on the property and some old monkey cages which are the main spot for creepy things... I have drop past late at night and see lights out there.... like candles or flashlights ... i never been inside at night but i have visited during the day many times... one such visit me and my friends found chicken heads and such.... was freaky.. There is a story about the monkey cages... many versions but all of them mainly sum up to the fact that the preacher owned monkeys and would take aggression out on them... beat them... some even say he molested them and did rituals but that is not for sure... they say that the monkeys went crazy one time when he went out there and go loose... it is even said they killed the preacher but i don't know that for sure... but there is a road called meredith that is nick named monkey road because supposedly when the monkeys got loose they ended up in the woods in this area and there were siting of the monkeys here and at night they would even through sticks and rocks at passing cars... there is also and old wood bridge on the road .... i have been done this road also at night and it is pretty creepy... And on the subject of the tunnels... ... there was a bomb shelter built under the courthouse... and they had these tunnels constructed way back that go under the city and lead to the bomb shelter under the courthouse... but after awhile the bomb shelter was sealed up and the tunnels were cut off from the courthouse... so now they say that rituals and cults hang in the tunnels... there are many entrances to the tunnels... and i have seen one of them with my own eyes.. it is in the basement of the athens country club and it is closed off... but me and a friend of mine use to work at the country club and we were helping them move some stuff around in the basement area and we moved this tall wood bookstand looking thing and there was a hole in the wall about the size of a plate... and we shined a flashlight in the hole and we seen a hall way with steps leading further downward.. and this i swear on my life... we did see this... and we asked the greens keeper about it cause he had been working there for MANY yrs and he said that is was the entrance to one of the tunnels in athens... and before i ever worked there i had heard stories about one of the entrances being at the country club... i have heard about other locations also but i never have seen an entrance besides the one at the country club... but all the entrances are at points... and they say that when the loop in finished... you can make the points on an athens map with the loop and it will make kind of a pentagram shape also... but i am not sure about that either... supposedly the courthouse in the center point... this is just some of the things i have heard about....and like i said i have witnesses some things myself so i do not doubt that something weird is going on in Athens....

creepy

Welcome to the South. The Bible Belt loves creepy stories about evil spirits. Every small town has some.

Could the chicken heads and stuff be from someone living in the woods and eating chickens. All towns have urban legends. Ours was the road that the ax murder lived on.

thats a cool story.im from texas also, but i never heard of such town as athens. in what region is athens located?

Bible Belt or not (although I agree people down here will make up the craziest "sin" stories to keep kiddos in check) there are always crazy people no matter where you live that did crazy things but are now dead, so the locals glam it up to make it more outlandish than it really is. Like how every town has it's "crazy old lady" that lives in a "haunted house" or whatever, when it's really just some old widow who is normal in every way, just lonely.


I live in Fort Worth (30 minutes West of Dallas, Texas) and Athens is like an hour drive directly SE of Dallas...I've marketed there before (and I have to talk to a lot of people to advertise) and none of the people told me any stories, but they sure did like to talk about their life lol. I think I'll take a trip to check out the scariness on my own

Hmmmmmmmmm....I grew up in East Texas and never heard anything like that about Athens. However, I do remember lots of cow mutilations and such all over East Texas when I was in high school.

oh man....maybe i never heard of it because i live deep south texas. anyway, we have some ghostly legends here too, but i'll talk about em later.

I have lived in Athens my whole life, and have heard tons about fullers park. I havent only heard me and my husband have both experinced some pretty weird things. The monkey cages and the house cannot be found anymore, yet no one ever took them out. They tried to sell it a few months back, some workers went to cut down some tree's, one got his arm cut off by a chainsaw and they never went back. My husband has slept in the monkey cages. Him and some friends had a 6 pack of beer that was left outside the monkey cages, he said it was a very hot night in the middle of June and when they woke their beer was frozen solid. When you walk into fullers park you feel peace but at the same time its creepy. I have been in there many of times. We went in yesterday and finally got some pictures of it, though they didn't come out right. There were things we wanted to get pics of that didnt turn out right, we also have some that look like there are things in the pics that was not there when we took them, So yes the stuff about fullers park is true, though I have never heard the whole story and hope to find someone one day who knows more than me.

wud be pretty awesome if it were true

probably the Devil haunts there.My cousins live in houstin texas and it be scary if they lived there.Do you know anyone doin witchcraft there?

witchcraft has nothing to do with devil worship! >.<

That depends...White magic,or Black?

true black magic has nothing to do with evil. That, like the use of the pentagram, and satanists worship the devil is a product of hollywood and people's lovely shmeer campagn against what they fear.

OK,I can see what you mean...but am still not to shure about it.I gess I shudn't even care,anyway,since I don't do magic.
but I have an ex-boyfreind who was a satanist,and he did magic and stuff(or at least said he did).I know there IS a difference between wiccans and santanist,since wiccans arn't evil,but I really don't know what it is....

p.s. he opanly it was the devil he worshiped.
p.p.s. and he is now my ex.

Most Satanists are atheists. They don't worship some red-skinned guy with cloven hoves and a pitchfork.

why would someone pretend to belive in something? and something bad?
ok,now i'm REALLY comfused....

I have lived in Athens my whole life and have heard the same things. As a teenager some friends and myself used to take girls out there and scare them on the weekends. We would take them past the graves and to the monkey cages and well. I have to admit that there were usually burn holes with fresh ashes and bones of small animals in them there. We had a pretty scary experience while we were out there one night trying to scare some girls and I never went back until I was grown and it was in the daytime. I have photos of the monkey cages and such. When I went out there, there was a couple of baby buzzards i guess, hanging around the outside of the monkey cages. I have photos of them too.
The weird experience I mentioned is the honest to God truth.
We had gone out there many many nights scaring people and never were really scared ourselves. But that night we got to the monkey cages and there were to burn holes glowing a weird bright blue color. Shaped as balls of light. We then kinda looked at each other and rather briskly started out of there. As we got to the graves which you have to pass to get out of there, it was as if 2 beams of blue lights were coming out of the sky shining on the graves. Not balls of light as the burn holes but large beams. I don't really know what it was but that was the last time I went back out there for at least 10-12 years. I don't know if all the stories are true, but I have heard all the same that you have been discussing. As for the tunnels and witch craft, I have heard the same too. I will find the photos and get them on here.

The monkey cages can too still be found. I was in Athens just the other day when I went out to fullers park and saw the monkey cages. I don't know about the house though because from what I was told fullers park was going to be a zoo so no house existed on the property. The feeling of peace yet also a creepy feeling was true for me also.

I hate when you don't know the truth about this town. I've lived here for 6 years now but my step dad has lived here for most of his life. As I am a teenager and my friends and my own curiousity of scary things we like to go check them out. I have been to Fullers park several times.. I've heard several storys of this town and even towns near Athens, TX. In Fullers park I've heard it was a amusement park and another that is was a zoo or was going to be a zoo. One story about Mr. And Mrs. Fuller that Mr. Fuller was a preacher as to what it does say on his tombstone and that Mrs. Fuller was a witch. But that could be a made up story about Mrs. Fuller. Well the tunnels unground in Athens is true. I know that one comes out of the Athens Country Club and one in Fullers park. Also about the highways once they get done its suppose to make a pentgram. In Fullers park nothing weird has happen to me so far. There IS one monkey cage that is still there.. you have to go off more into the woods on a little path that still is there and its kinda of behind the graves. Well I've heard the storys of the monkeys and everything else but not sure if it was true. We have talked to the guy that has lived right across from Fuller's park for 20 years and he goes in there to squirl hunt and he says that they use to have outside preaching in the cage and that it was never for monkeys or any animals. I have not found any houses out there but I was just noticing this week when I went out there again and drove into the park that across the road there is a small trailer that looks new on a lot that has the same brick wall that is also surrounding the park. So maybe a house was there once. I'm suppose to go back out there and take some more pictures of the park but time will have to wait but it should be real soon. Here is one picture that I took on March 23, 2005 of Mr. and Mrs. Fuller's grave. Also if you have any question just reply or email me at hollistershane@aol.com If you have pictures I would really like to see them, does anyone know of any other places in Athens, TX?

go to http://members.aol.com/hollistershane/fullers.jpg to see the picture

Very interesting post. I look forward to learning more.
I worked Henderson County among others a few years ago. Athens is the county seat. Dont recall any of the above mentioned tales. I do know that Henderson County seemed like meth/sexual abuse capital of East Texas.
Also if I recall they have one bad azz judge and some pretty good ADAs.

yep! Also I forgot to mention, Henderson County is number three for devil worshipers and wicca and all that other junk in the world. Scary huh?!

http://www.angelfire.com/pa3/ghosts1/txghosts.html

Found this on google but cant get it to work on my old dial up. Someone else might have better luck.

texas is probably a hotbed for santa rio and that other mexican voodoo.

I have lived very close to Athens, TX for 13 years in the nearby town of Mabank (We are about an hour SE of Dallas, Athens is about an hour and 20 min). I began hearing the rumors and stories when I was in junior high, and I can vouch for the rest of the people on here in that YES, they are all TRUE.

I have been an amateur paranormal investigator for several years and have visited Fullers Park on many occasions both during the day and at night. My friends and I have taken over a hundred pictures inside the park and the surrounding area. In one of our photographs of the monkey cage, we counted over 100 orbs, and they did not look happy...

I could go on and on about all the legends of the area and of course the hot spot Fullers Park in particular, maybe another time, but I will say that I have for sure never been as scared in my life as I was the night me and my best friend went in there late one summer night in June 2003. We were walking down the trail and had just gotten past the graves a ways when we both heard something and stopped dead in our tracks. We immediately started shining our 5cell maglights all over the adjacent tree line. We distinctly heard loud heavy footsteps coming toward us in the woods, but whatever it was was walking on 2 feet because it only took 1 distinct step at a time, and it moved very slow as if it was trying to sneak up on us. It was so quiet that night you could have heard a pin drop, so we immediately zoned in on where it was coming from. What was so scary was that it was that the sound was so close to us that we could have almost reached out and touched whatever or whoever it was, but yet we never saw a thing. We stood there for several minutes shining our lights all over the place, listening to its steps get closer and closer to us. It must have been only 10-15 feet away from us tops, but we never saw so much as a leaf move. Needless to say we took off running back up that hill just as fast as we could, jumped in the car, and hauled ass out there.

To this day I have never been back. I can also say that I have seen the devil worshipers come out of the woods with my own eyes, and they had some kind of dead animal strapped to a gurney type cart thing. Fullers Park is pure evil and something is seriously wrong about Athens, Texas...

Here is a small fact. If they are devil worshipers then best to stay out of there way!
That old saying..... out of sight out of mind! think about it!

I lived there briefly with my dad where i made a few friends who all said the exact same. That there were devil worshiping cults and witches everywhere. I never saw it first hand but we went to the local legend there called the Elephant Graveyard or Fullers Park. It was the site of a circus some time ago and if you go in there are cages for animals and such still inside, kind of fun. Just wanted to mention that the town is full of local urban legends. People say if you go way back into Fullers Park thats where the rituals and junk are held.

on the subject of satan worshipping and Texas, has anyone seen the 1975 film "Race with the Devil", starring Peter Fonda and the late, great Warren Oates? It's just recently been released on dvd in the U.S., and it deals with a vacationing couple driving through the backwoods of Texas only to encounter a pack of Devil-worshippers. A great film, full of shocks and paranoia. One of my desert island picks; check it out! Selah

Devil worship and Wicca are not the same at all. Wiccan don't even believe the devil exists. According to the Wiccan Rede (one of the highest Wiccan codes of behavior) "'An it harm none, do what ye will". In other words, Do what you please as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. If you do some research you'll find that Wiccans place a lot of emphasis on peace and respect for others. (here's a good link: http://www.witchway.net/wicca/what1.html)
Also, the pentagram in itself is not evil: only when misguided people use it for evil.

I myself am not a Wiccan, but I AM a pagan, and it bothers me when we pagans are confused with the evil associated with devil worship. Technically Satanists are a Christian sect, because they have splintered off of Christianity by choosing to follow the devil instead of God. However, they still acknowledge the existance of the christian God, they have just chosen to follow his nemesis.

As a college student in Athens, I've never encountered or heard of any of the supernatural goings on of Fuller Park, and I live on campus. I have heard of the pipes and the road (the Loop is finished, by the way, so the pentagram is complete), and that is actually what I was searching for when I found this page. However, I asked my fiance about it (he's been here for one more semester than I) and he rattled off all the stories, and some about our friends and they things they've encountered there. I have to say, in the hour I've been researching it I've found about three different versions of the story of the monkey cages, and while I don't think any one of those stories is very factual, I do think there's something terribly wrong about that place. I've always been sensitive to emotions and auras, but in Athens (probably because of the pentagram under it ) I've been even more sensitive. I keep getting awful migraine-like headaches, and there didn't seem to be any cause for them. But as soon as I started hearing these stories, I knew. The stories themselves may not be very true, but the sick feeling in my guts when I hear the phrases "Fuller Park" and "monkey cages" is. Something awful happened in that park, and I have no desire to find out what.

eh?

Carolyn McCrary & Sherman McCrary, Ginger Taylor, Ray Taylor, and Daniel McCrary (1971-1972) aka "the McCrary Family" started out as a group of armed robbers in Athens, Texas and proceeded to become obsessed with kidnapping, rape, and murder.

Try the people listed on this site.
link

Why don't they just close off all the tunnel entrances, and post a don't tresspass sign and tell them a Huge fine will be leveled against anyone breaking those rules and I bet this will put a stop to the locals trying to hold Seances and things, and possibly doing a little witchcraft to scare each other.

Teens for example like to gather at these places, drink and do ugly things and try to scare up some mysterious forces.

People need to realize that they don't have to participate in these things at all because the Spirit World is all around us and spirits can visit us whether we do these rituals or not if they want to.

Its possible that some ghosts or spirits seeing what is going on might decide to do a little fun of their own and scare the daylights out of those doing these things.

First, welcome to UM! Second, I agree with you totally. Wiccan is not the "sinister" spiritual path that some make it out to be. People that say that don't know ANYTHING about it. Wiccans don't even believe in the devil, or demons!

Wiccans follow their own path and believe in what they think is right. There are no rules to follow as some other religions. The only thing that might be considered a "rule" is ...
Do what you will, and harm none.
Harm none! How can that be sinister???

Thanks for the welcome.

I don't know if it's been posted already (skimmed the posts and didnt see it, but may have missed it) but I found the following link with some photos by googling fuller park...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/special/5365690/

i have lived in athens for most of my life. all the stories i have heard through the years i honestly beleive i have seen some pretty weird stuff. Me and some friends used to party in fullers park right next to the graves and when your drunk well you know nothing scares you for the most part. but that place is so creepy, i have been to the monkey cages and to where the old house used to stand all that is left is the foundation. a few years ago, a company started clearing out the underbrush and a guy got his arm nearly cut off. or some say bit off, but no one know how it happened. needless to say they shut down their opperation. one of the entrances to the tunnels is at the country club and another at fullers park. from what i have heard the others have yet to be found. there are alot of stories about every town in the US but the ones about this little town in texas will freak you out. there are other stories, like the one about the old saw mill or the indian cememtary. but i guess what i am saying is you beleive what you want to. i believe in these stories as many others due as well.

I've lived in Athens, Texas all my life and every who has lived here long knows about Fuller's Park. The Preacher had monkeys and yes rumor had it that someone wanted to turn it into a zoo. Even the people who were looking for a place for the East Texas Arboretum considered the site.

Yes there are tunnels under the town, but I don't think the new loop has constructed to make it into a pentagram..If you drive on the loop you know it isn't a circle by the term circle (360 degrees). It is a loop. I think people have turned tunnels into more than what they really are...just tunnels. I do know there is a tunnel under the old high school building that is behind what used to be West Athens elementary. That tunnel runs under W. College street and the students used it in case of tornados. My grandmother told me of a couple of times that they had to go into the tunnels during storms and tornado drills.
I have also heard of the ones under the courthouse but again they are old tunnels for storms and fall out shelters.

I once read a book, can't recall the title but it was about ghosts and all in Texas towns. I think I read that the Athens Country club had some people in the 80's say that it was haunted. Something about working late in the kitchen and hearing the pool balls rolling on the pool table when they had just racked them up and left the room.

There was lots of devil worshipping going on back in the 80's but lately haven't heard much on the subject..just too much meth and abuse happening like lots of other towns around.

As far as curses put on a town to keep tornados away is pure bull. Would be like you out on a football field and a person with a gun was blindfolded trying to shoot a moving target. Tornados don't happen all that often, don't stay on the ground very long, and basically they are a shot in the dark..Can happen, but more likely won't happen.

As far as haunting goes...I think the old Subway where a new bar-b-q place is, is another story. My sister and several friends who worked there had many weird and strange happenings there. There used to be a fox photo building there in the 80's and a video store there before subway took over and put that brick building on the spot...Long ago the Old Methodist Church was on that block, but there was one of the original Hanging Trees there also. My grandpa told me that after court they would have public hangings on that corner on that old tree. I believe the historical society has a book on the hanging trees of henderson county.
My sister said that they had things moved from one place to another overnight, had a tomato fly across the room and hit the wall, heard a woman's voice call their names several times at night, heard women laughing, had the radio go nuts racing up and down the dials, several employees quit after getting spooked with strange happenings. Just lots of unexplained happenings...but who knows could all be explained if someone looked into it.
Most things are just active imaginations and town kids having their ritual teen spook parties out at Fuller's park...I'm sure after lots of beer, you will be seeing all sorts of lights and orbs...LOL

I grew up in Henderson County and went to school in Cross Roads, 8 miles SW of Athens. My friends and I went to Fuller's Park several times, during the day and at night. I have explored much of the area and seen the cages and tombstones. At one point my friends and I wanted to do some "detective" work, it was a blast.

We went to the Public Library and searched in the Historical Documents room, very fascinating. It housed records from the late 1800's and found names, dates and various land documents. There were alot of prominent Athens family names all though out the papers that still live there today. We didn't find much of the Fullers, but did see the family name on a couple of documents.

Then we went to the Athens Daily Review newspaper office and got access to the archives, great weatlh of information with pictures and newspapers from the late 1800's. Then we got a little freaked out when I found a photograph of Mr. Fuller. It might of just been the quality of the photograph but he just looked a bit odd, i still remember his eyes. On the back of the photo it said his full name and a date. Hopefully it is still there, i remember finding it in a photograph filling cabinet.

We had a map of Athens and knowing about the legend of the pentagram around the city we decided to plot the points. Key locations we knew about were the Courthouse, Athens Country Club, the Fuller Park and the Flame Motel. The Flame Motel was off of Hwy. 175 but it is not the name of the hotel anymore but i'm sure people from that area remember it. We decided to venture out on the roads leading outside of Athens. One strange finding were old houses made of the same era of stone and brick that the Fuller park wall is constructive of. You can find one of these houses off of Hwy. 31 leading towards Tyler. The Athens loop was just starting construction so we didn't really know about the later connection people have been making. I would be really surprised if the old house we found is not far from the part of the loop that passes by Hwy. 31. Also if anyone has heard of Beck's Chapel that is outside of Athens towards Cross Roads on back roads, that is thought to have been a point of interest. I can't remember how the points laid out, but now i'm looking at google maps and the points do seem layout around the city, but are not very symmetrical to a consistent circle.

During the times we would venture out into Fuller's there would be something weird happen, not so much metaphysical but very eerie feeling. One night about 4 of us parked at the Athens Theatre Center, next door to the park, and went in over the brick wall from the east. We were not out there very long until my friend Jason started yelling "let's go!" Apparently he saw a man and a dog at the south entrance yelling at us to get out, so we got out of there quick. We think he lived in a house across the street, but it was weird he was patrolling the place after midnight. Another time I took my cousin, who was visiting from Panama. I told her all about the Fullers Park and she was really interested. It was during the day, which I think is the scariest time to go, it has this wierd foggy glow feeling from all the light shinning through the leaves. While we were there I showed her the cages and tombstones, she was getting a little freaked out. And then the funniest and scariest thing happened, we heard a chainsaw. She went crazy, grabbing on to me so tight. At first i was freaked but i could tell it was from across the street, but I did jump when i first heard it. We got out of there pretty quick and see was almost in tears.

This was about 13 years ago and i will always remember these stories. Who knows if they are real or not, but the best part is keeping the tales going. My friends and I had one of the best times in our lives as being young "detectives" and I still tell the stories to new friends when we get on the subject of spooky stories from our childhoods.

i've lived in athens texas for 15 years and yes there is a fuller's park where most of the county ritualism takes place..about the tunnels in the shape of a pentagram..who tf would know that unless they built them in which case they would more than likely be dead by now..
i have pictures i took while at fuller's park if you would like to see..

http://vampirefreaks.com/gallery.php?u=Goth_juggalette08

ok here's something for anybody who may have info.. I've only lived in Athens a couple years. my husband and I bought a house ( we no longer live in) at 105 morrison. And what I'm about to tell you is honest to God truth. I would hear footsteps late at night, my daughters high chair would move slightly, I've even felt someone on or near my bed. My 8 year old daughter came into my room in the middle of the night one night freaked out, said she was woken up by a ghost that looked like a baby playing with her sister's toys. The kid was genuinely scared to death, I could tell she hadn't made it up. we would see weird "glows" sometimes. The "beings" or whatever you may call them seemed friendly enough..but still scared the crap out of us. I thought maybe it was a family that had been murdered there back in the day or something. who knows...it's a real old house. you guys got any input...I'd love to hear it.