Ono Media (5:22)

You heard me.

Peyton Moreland (5:23)

They think this is a portal to hell. Now, I'll warn you right now, it is not a good idea to try and find these gates on your own. Not only because of the danger that you could get sucked into a fiery afterlife, according to the legend, but also because they're on private property. The people who own the land don't like it when strangers wander around there. In fact, I'm not going to share any exact directions on how to find the gates because I wouldn't want to encourage anyone to break the law or go exploring there. But for the sake of argument, let's imagine that someone did go looking for the gates outside of Helen Township. If they got to the right area during the day, they'll find nothing but trees and bushes and rocks, the sort of ordinary things that you'd expect to see in a forest. And that's because, according to the legend, the gates aren't visible when the sun is out. However, if you were to come to the same area at night, you would see something appear right in front of your eyes. A gate that definitely wasn't there during the day. Supposedly, it's close enough to the road that you can spot it without even parking or getting out of your car. It's made of iron, it looks old and worn down, and the moment you lay eyes on it, you do get a bad feeling. Something about this gate just triggers people's instincts and makes them feel like they're in danger. You have enough courage to walk through the gate, the second one will appear. It's another gate that wasn't visible when you were looking at the first one. Instead, it's like one second you're looking at an empty forest with nothing in it, and then suddenly, like magic, the new entrance appears in front of you. If you go through the second, you'll see a third. Then there's a fourth and a fifth, all appearing out of nowhere and in a very specific order. Now, the ground in this area is very hilly and the whole walk from the first to the last gate is uphill. The further you get through the gates, the more you'll notice strange sounds and sensations. Many people in real life who've walked this path report seeing shadowy figures. They look like ghosts and that they're not totally solid, but they never hold still long enough for anyone to get a good look at them. You also might hear tortured screams in the distance, or you could smell ash and smoke, like something is burning nearby. Plus, the lighting might change and shift as you pass through each gate. No matter how bright the moon was when you started or whether you're carrying a flashlight, the pathway does get darker with each step. It's harder to see what's going on around you. The really creepy thing is that if you keep going through the gates, all of those sensations will get stronger, meaning the screams get louder, the burning scent gets more intense, the lights get darker, and so on. I have to imagine that if you are experiencing this, which a lot of people have said they have, this is terrifying. In fact, according to legend, a lot of people have tried to walk through all of the gates just to chicken out before they reach the fifth one. The screams and the shadowy figures are too scary, so they actually give up. They run back to their cars. The problem is that after you do manage to get through gate five, I don't know what happens after that point. If the legends in this area are to be believed, no one has ever gone through it and then lived to tell the tale. Supposedly, there are two more gates after that. A sixth and a seventh one. And the story goes that the seventh and final one opens into hell itself. Anyone who makes it that far is doomed to spend all of eternity in.

Ono Media (9:00)

A lake of fire.

Peyton Moreland (9:01)

It's literally a portal. Now, you might be thinking, okay, Peyton, if nobody has ever made it past the fifth gate and survived, then how could anyone even know what's at the sixth gate and seventh ones? How could anyone possibly confirm that this pathway ends in Hell? Well, rumor goes that the gates used to be there. They used to be physical, as in they were made of iron. And they existed here in the real world all of the time, not just at night. But then something happened that was so traumatic and unsettling, it transformed the land and the gates into something supernatural. It became a portal at some point in history. And, of course, that event also ripped open a hole between our world and the afterlife. So, as the stories go, the land where the gates now stand actually used to be a mental health facility. In the late 1800s, it was built outside of Hellam Township. Apparently, the doctors and workers in the hospital wanted the building to be pretty far from town. They were concerned about their patients escaping and threatening the locals. So the thought was that everyone would be a lot safer if the facility was deep in the woods and pretty hard to get to. Now, once the asylum was built, the state of Pennsylvania sent all of their worst, most difficult patients to it. Before you knew it, the asylum was packed with murderers, people who had committed assaults, people with violent delusions. The list went on. The nurses and Doctors who worked there did their best to treat the patients, at least the best they could according to 19th century standards. Because if you didn't know, people didn't really understand mental health very well in the 1800s, and they weren't very nice to people struggling with mental health. They tried to treat people with remedies that sound pretty barbaric to us today. Lobotomies and electric shock therapy. You just could get away with treating these people inhumanely. Lobotomies and electroshock therapies hadn't even been invented yet. But the treatments that were used were horrible. Some doctors believed they could help people manage panic attacks by tying them up, locking them in tiny cages. Basically, these anxious people were confined in a place that was so small they couldn't sit down or take a single step. Imagine having a panic attack. And that being the remedy. They were left there for hours until the doctors thought they were calm enough to be let go. Some medics also believed they could help people feel more mentally stable by spinning them around really fast. All this actually accomplished was making people dizzy and nauseous. And again, these were treatments that some of the best mental health hospitals in the world were using. Plenty of facilities weren't even nice enough to do that. They were run down, understaffed, full of abusive employees, and the conditions were much worse. Overall, a lot of doctors believed they could use the same treatments for every mental health condition. So they didn't care if you had schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, they would treat everyone exactly the same. Even if some remedies helped certain people and hurt others. People who were poor and people with learning disabilities were sometimes lumped in with other patients in these facilities. Meaning even though they didn't even have mental health conditions, they were subjected to treatments they didn't need. The doctors and staff just didn't care. At this time, it was socially acceptable to not treat these people like humans. Sadly, the hospital outside of Hellam Township was in this category. It was one of the bad ones. In fact, it was a terrible place for the patients and the staff alike. Things quickly spiraled here. And then, as if things couldn't have been any worse, the asylum caught on fire one night. Stories say it ignited somewhere on the top floors and spread downward right away. Someone called the local fire department and the first responders rushed to the scene. But we're talking about a facility that.

Ono Media (13:04)

Was well outside of town.

Peyton Moreland (13:05)

And these were the days before fire trucks. The firefighters were racing to the hospital in horse drawn wagons. It took a long time for them to make it There. And by the time they did, it was too late. The entire building was engulfed in flames and beyond saving. Now, legends say many patients died in that fire, especially those whose rooms were in the upper floors. They were locked in those rooms. They didn't have enough time to wake up, get out of bed, and escape the building before the heat and the smoke overtook them. Some patients on the lower floors managed to get outside of the hospital, but now they were facing a new problem. The people of Hellam Township were terrified of these patients. Again, the general public did not have a great understanding of mental health in the 1800s, and a lot of the locals assumed that these residents were very dangerous to be around. So as soon as they began quarrying out of the building, the Hellam Township people formed hunting parties. This was their solution. Their top goal was to find the escaped patients and contain them by any means necessary, even if that meant beating or. Or killing helpless, unarmed people. Now, some townsfolk hastily built an iron fence around the entire forest. Their thought was that this would stop patients in the forest from getting away. And then they searched the areas inside the fence, and once they cleared part of it, they built a smaller barrier to separate the areas they knew to be empty from the regions they still needed to search. So basically, there was a huge iron fence with a gate on the outside.

Ono Media (14:44)

And then they built a smaller one.

Peyton Moreland (14:46)

Inside the first one. And after that, they put up an even smaller fence inside of that one, and so on. The idea was that they were squeezing the escaped inmates into a smaller and smaller space. Each new fence, and there were seven of them total, cut off more escape routes and more hiding places. And finally, all of the inmates who had escaped the fire were penned up inside the seventh smallest barrier. They were scared. They were outside in their pajamas, without shoes or coats, and in some cases, they weren't even sure what was going on due to their mental health struggles. But instead of showing compassion, the townsfolk supposedly got all of these patients into the smallest circle and then beat them to death. Anyone who thought to surrender was handcuffed and locked up until the locals could arrange for them to be sent to a new facility. Except only a small number of patients survived the fire and the slaughter. So, in other words, if the rumors are true, a horrible injustice was committed that day. Countless people who only wanted treatment and safety were murdered. And it wasn't even because they were trying to escape. They were trying to stay alive. As the story goes, those murdered people's souls remained trapped inside those iron fences. The seven gates contained their spirits for the rest of eternity. Even after the fences were eventually taken down, the patient's ghosts remained. And that's how the seven physical iron gates that were in real life turned into magical gates. Local Legends also says the fire filled doorway to hell opened right on the grounds where the asylum had once stood.

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Peyton Moreland (17:30)

And now that I'm done telling you the history of these seven gates of hell in Pennsylvania, you might be thinking, I mean, this doesn't really make sense, right?

Ono Media (17:41)

Like we're talking real world.

Peyton Moreland (17:43)

Who has the time to build seven iron fences when they're trying to capture escaped mental health patients? And how couldn't they just escape before the fences were finished? Takes hours or days to put something up like that, assuming you already have all of the materials and tools ready to go and the people. And if everyone was that afraid of the inmates, you'd think they wouldn't want to waste a single second for that reason alone. I'll be honest, it's kind of hard to accept this story at face value, especially because there's no evidence that there was ever even a mental health hospital anywhere near Hellam Township. There's no record of an asylum fire in the area or of the alleged slaughter of the escaped patients. So that's why a lot of historians actually believe that this story is a complete hoax. They think it's not true, but it could have been inspired by similar events that did happen. For example, one local historian learned that there used to be a huge mansion outside of town. It never operated as a mental health facility, and it certainly didn't burn down with dozens of people trapped inside. Still, it is possible that at some point in the past, people thought the house looked A little spooky. So they might have made up stories about it being a mental health hospital with a dark history. If there were also already rumors about the seven gates and the entrance to hell, it was only natural for the two rumors to then eventually be mashed into one. However, there's another urban legend that might explain the gates history a little better. And it goes that there used to be a doctor who lived in the woods outside of Hellam Township, and there was a reason why his house was so far outside of town. He was conducting dangerous and disturbing medical experiments on unwilling people, patients who had not given consent. And I will say this was common for scientists. And he didn't want anyone to know what he was doing. He also didn't want to let his patients escape and tell anyone what he had been up to. Some rumors say that he was performing these experiments on people with mental health conditions or disabilities. Maybe he had convinced an asylum in another town to let him take their residence home with him. Other accounts say that he had a bizarre obsession with toads. He loved them and kept a huge collection of living specimens and dead bodies. He also filled his home and the lands around the property with disturbing statues of horrible half human, half toad monsters. There were also signs posted everywhere that warned people not to get too close. One actually said, quote, if you are found here at night, they will find your body of the morning. Another read, under the sign of the toad, no trespassing. Now, rumor goes that this doctor was so afraid of unwanted visitors and of his patients getting away that he built a sturdy iron fence around his property. And then he put up another one around that and another one, until eventually there were seven gates that people had to go through to get in and.

Ono Media (20:47)

Out of his property.

Peyton Moreland (20:48)

And after hearing all of this, you may be wondering, okay, why was he so protective? What was he actually doing? What experiments were so disturbing that he needed to go to such extremes to keep people away, keep them hidden? Well, none of the urban legends say say. And the story is that nobody ever had a chance to search his home and find out, because, as rumor goes, one night the doctor's home caught pyre. Some of his prisoners died in the blaze. After all. They were chained up or kept in cages. They had no way of getting out even once they realized the blaze was burning. And after they died, their souls were trapped inside those seven gates forever. This is very similar to what happened in the asylum version of this story. Now, I should acknowledge, once again, it is impossible to verify any of that. The evidence suggests that there really was a doctor who lived on Trout Run Road at one time in history. But as for the allegations that he was conducting bizarre experiments and keeping unwilling patients chained up in his home, there's no record of that. There is also no record of any house, the doctors or otherwise, burning down in a fire that matches this account. There's one detail about this story, though, that is true, and it could be pretty key. The house did exist and it did have a gate outside of it. We know that even after the home crumbled away to nothing, the fence and the gate still stood in the middle of the woods. And they were up until a few years ago. They were tucked away very far off the beaten path and almost impossible to find. In fact, there were rumors that the only way to spot the gate was on accident. It only appeared to people who were lost or who didn't even actually realize the gate's significance. Those same legends also said that this was the first of the seven gates. Now, to make things trickier and more confusing, for a while there were three gates all standing next to each other in the same part of the woods. And only one was the correct gate, the one that led to the other six entryways into the portal to hell. It was crumbling and close to falling apart. It didn't look magical or mystical, but appearances can be deceiving. Apparently, if you walked through it after dark, the second through the seventh gates would appear one after the other. And the last one, the one that opened directly into Hell, stood right on the foundations where the doctor's house used to stand. The problem was that once the word got out, tons of people began wandering through the woods looking for this gate. And as I mentioned, it's on private property. The landowners today do not like that. So many people tried to trespass. And eventually the city tore down the gate to try and stop people from looking for it. Meaning if you go there today, against the locals wishes, you won't be able to find the gate. So again, my recommendation is that you don't try. Let's allow the people of Hellam Township to live their lives in peace. That said, if you're really feeling curious, there are legal ways to see the seven gates without trespassing. There is a public park not too far from Trout Run Road and you can go down to the park, climb a tall hill and look down on the land where the gate to hell is supposed to be. You can't go through it, obviously, but honestly, if there really is an entrance to the afterlife there, it might be safer just to not get close. Especially because you don't need to actually see the seven gates to have a spooky experience in Hellam Township. This place is spooky all on its own. This lore aside, in particular, a lot of this centers around Trout Run Road, which is where the gates are supposed to stand. Apparently, it used to have a nickname, Toad Road. To be clear, the street never formally had that designation, but almost all of the locals agreed that's what it used to be called as a nickname. Now, some say it got the name from the wicked doctor and his toad obsession, and others say it's because there actually used to be a pair of gargoyles that stood on either side of the road and you'd have to drive right between them to get out of town and into the woods. They looked like toad monsters. So people just started calling it to the road. And get this, at some point in the 1970s, according to history, those gargoyles just disappeared. It's not like the town hired anyone to take them down. They didn't get damaged. They were just there one day and gone the next. And speaking of things disappearing, this area of York county is notorious. First, sudden sinkholes. And if you don't know the law on sinkholes, people believe they're portals. So according to the locals, it's a fact of life that sometimes the ground will open up and swallow things. Huge vehicles, construction equipment. Look it up on YouTube. It's actually insane. Now, officially, that's because in the past there were a lot of mining operations in this area made the ground unstable.

Ono Media (25:56)

So reportedly, the sinkholes are all natural. There's nothing just random or suspicious at all about it. But you do have to wonder if maybe there's more to these stories. Something a little demonic perhaps. These vehicles and equipment aren't just falling into a pit of mud and rocks, but they could be getting sucked into hell. If that's what people believe is under this, a hell that is guarded by two toed monsters that came to life and abandoned their posts as gargoyles. There was actually a sinkhole in my hometown when I lived there. And it was weird. It was scary and weird that one day it just opened up and everything fell in.

Peyton Moreland (26:32)

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Ono Media (27:32)

That, local legend says there's another doorway to hell besides the one that lies at the end of the seven gates. Apparently, this portal only opens on Halloween, and there are no clear directions on how to find it. The story goes that you could be walking around one day, minding your own business, only to notice that the trees around you are getting thicker and denser.

Peyton Moreland (27:50)

And.

Ono Media (27:50)

And if you keep going forward, the leaves will become so thick they'll block the sun above. And even if it's the middle of the day, your pathway will be as dark as night. If that happens, the best advice I can give you is turn around and head back the way you came. Because if you continue forward, according to the legend, you'll find yourself trapped in an eternal inferno. There's also urban legends that say it's possible to open an entrance to hell in a particular cemetery in Hellam Township, which might be why the local teenagers are supposedly known to sneak out at night and host seances in public areas. Rumor is they're trying to summon spirits. Now, on top of those stories, this area is also a hot spot for UFO sightings and ghost hauntings. Some people even believe that literal goblins live in the woods in this area and play pranks on the people who venture into the forest. Also, there are legends of a horrible murder that a Hellam Township resident committed back in the 1950s was a man who killed his wife and children. And then, according to rumor, he drove into the woods with their bodies and he posed the remains near the gates. So when the police eventually found the corpses, they were leaning against one of the seven mystical fences. And those gates had some kind of meaning to the killer. Otherwise, why would he have done this? And it's hard to speculate on exactly what was going through his mind. But of course, rumors will always fly. Like maybe the portal to hell influenced that man's thinking and caused him to murder his family. Or maybe he left his family on the gates as some kind of sacrifice, selling his soul to the devil. Now, I could go on But I think you get the point. The area outside of Hellam Township and Hellam Township as a whole is just strange and mysterious. Okay, it is just known that it has a scary past, enough so that people even think the town's name, Hellam, is in relation to Hell. It's literally called Helam because it's a link to hell. People believe this now, the residents deny those claims. They say the town was actually named after a community in England called Hallam Shear, but the name got misspelled in the Hellam Township's records. Another theory goes that centuries ago, like I mentioned before, there was a lot of mining in York County. The operations involved opening these huge pits full of smelly sulfur, and they made the air in the region smell like fire and brimstone. So this is where it got the Hellam name. I'll just say it's pretty notable that this small town has so many connections to the afterlife. It's literally like hocus pocus in real life. In between its name, all of the rumors about portals, sinkholes, and the mysterious gargoyles and the gates, it's no surprise that there are a lot of spooky stories and rumors about this area. But there's one account that stands out from the rest. According to one newspaper article, the seven gates of Hell are, quote, York County's best known urban legend. Locals even warn one another not to check their rear view mirrors when they're driving down Trout Run Road. Supposedly, the risk of getting sucked into Hell is so high that people won't even check their blind spots on this road. That is in spite of the fact that most of the experts and historians that have looked into this spooky place say there's nothing to this story. There are no gates, no entrance to hell, and nothing supernatural going on. In fact, they say there's a logical explanation for the rumors. Apparently the woods are full of a lot of trees that have fallen and collapsed. Sometimes if one falls at exactly the right angle, it can look like a gate. And if you're wandering through the woods at night and it's dark enough, you can't see well and you're already scared. Well, maybe you see these trees and think that it's a mysterious, magical gate that's appeared in front of you. So one rumor is that the seven gates of Hell are just the result of some people's overactive imaginations. Then, as stories spread around the Internet, details got added and exaggerated and taken away. It's lore, but then again, that's what officials almost always say. When they're discussing something strange and inexplainable, that it's a trick of the light or people imagining things, or it's just all a rumor or a hoax. The truth is, we probably won't ever know the full truth of the Seven Gates and the spooky history of especially so long as they're on private, inaccessible land. However, the stories might have a grain of truth to them, and that notion helps the world feel a little bit more magical. I mean, how can one town for decades all believe the same thing? It is always shocking to me that places like this exist and the public has no idea. I hope that learning about the history of this real place was interesting for you, and that is our episode this week. I will see you next time as we go further into the dark together. Goodbye.