Like the story of the Green Man, aka the late Raymond Robinson, some Pittsburgh tall tales contain echoes of real or perceived tragedy. As Legends & Lore of Western Pennsylvania author Thomas White has written, urban legends often resonate precisely because they take place in “day-to-day normal surroundings” that we can still access — and even interact with.
One subcategory is “legend tripping,” which “involves traveling to a remote or isolated place, almost exclusively at night, where some supernatural event is said to occur,” writes White. The brave tripper is asked to perform a ritual — honking their car’s horn, flashing its headlights three times — that triggers a response, becoming part of the legend.
For whatever reason, Western Pennsylvania has a long roster of legend trips. Traveling to Blue Mist Road (aka Irwin Road) in the North Hills, you might run into a Satanic cult. It’s said if you pass through the “Bleeding Tunnel” in West Mifflin, your car will be splattered with drops of blood from a man allegedly stabbed there — whose killer was never caught.
Today, many of these sites are closed or only accessible on foot, but Pittsburgh City Paper wanted to take a traditional legend trip. We drove out to 13 Bends Road (largely thought to be Campbell’s Run Road in Harmar Township), so named because it has a disappearing bend — bending 13 times when you drive in one direction and only 12 in the other. (Fair warning to the reader: it is a private road.)
Tucked behind a short residential street amid dense woodlands, 13 Bends is surrounded by a lot of lore. The most popular legend goes that many years ago, even centuries back, the road was home to an orphanage that burned down, trapping children inside the blaze. It is said that, at night, their handprints will appear on a dusty car, or you might be able to hear them whispering.
Another gruesome legend holds that the orphanage was actually a girl’s school and, once, a crazed murderer stabbed 13 girls, leaving a body at each one of the road’s 13 bends. In yet another version, the school is a mine that collapsed, burying miners inside, and at night, their ghosts still wander, covered in soot.
According to Iron City Paranormal Investigators, who explored 13 Bends in 2019, other bizarre activity occurs. There are reports of apparitions, splashing water in the creek the road intersects, floating orbs, and phantom headlights. There’s even a cautionary tale about legend-tripping teenagers who were killed — sometime in the 1950s — while tempting fate and driving 13 Bends. (In his book, White was only able to verify there was a dance hall on the road that burned down in the 1940s, though no deaths were reported.)
Driving 13 Bends in the dark, which takes about 10 minutes each way, it’s easy to become suggestible. The terrain on either side of the road is sloped, with towering trees and pockets of plants you can picture something jumping out of (or alternatively, a place a body could be well hidden). Signs posted on telephone poles reflect ominously in headlights, and more than once, we thought we heard muted voices.
Counting the bends themselves also proved difficult, as we weren't sure how liberally we should interpret a "bend" in the road. The road runs on an incline, and the curves felt more perceptible when descending — so the count was, in fact, different, uphill versus downhill. One trip netted 12 bends one way and 13 the other — giving us the heebie-jeebies — but on the second run, we clocked 11 up and 14 down. Needless to say, driving this road in the dark is disorienting.
We’re disappointed to report that no children’s handprints appeared, though we waited diligently.
Also, the road does end at a clearing with signage for CONSOL Energy’s Harmar mine (again, we do not recommend trespassing), but ghost miners declined to make a cameo. Ultimately, the road is haunting and beautiful and, maybe, more than anything, a testament to the power of suggestion on a spooky night.
While exploring, we wondered if legend tripping will persist in an increasingly virtual era. In addition to being entertaining, it reveals our fears, and affords the opportunity for some real-life bravery — as long as you don’t run into a wayward spirit caught between worlds.
