Ghosts & The Supernatural – When I visited Lehigh, Oklahoma with my mom, dad and sister, I was about 12 years old. What I remember about this desolate place is that the land is filled with chiggers. My legs had bites all over them. I remember seeing water snakes in the strippets made by coal miners. Strippets are large holes in the ground created by past coal miners. I remember capturing a land turtle and after playing with this turtle for about 2 hours, I released it back in the grasslands.
My dad was born and raised in Lehigh. His mother Sophie Roberts was known as the Angry French Woman. My cousin Paul Leaird at one time was the mayor of Lehigh, Oklahoma, after his tour in Vietnam with the 1st Cavalry Division. When I visited Lehigh, it was during the weekend of 4th of July and I remember lighting a Black Cat firecracker and it blew up in my hand. I was screaming bloody hell. Believe me it hurt. That very same night after I fell asleep, I went sleep walking in my grandmother’s house and my father found me walking about in a dead sleep. I believe the pain from the firecracker blowing up in my hand, caused my sleep walking. The next night, the pain subsided and I was able to watch the fireflies in the night sky. My cousins and I would capture them and place them in a large jar. The very first time I went hunting was in Oklahoma and I did not have the heart to shoot a rabbit, nor could I shoot a deer. My dad sort of gave up on me, when it came to hunting.
Anyway, those are the things that I remember about Lehigh. Lehigh is an very old town, been around since 1882. At one time this town was called Boone, but then they changed it to Lehigh, naming it after Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, a coal mining region. At one point of time, Pretty Boy Floyd passed through this town and legend has it, hid at one of the homes in Lehigh. My grandmother lived in a home, that was built by the blood money gained from a notorious sheriff of the town. Story has it the corrupt sheriff killed a resident and took his valuables and money. With that money he built the house that my grandmother lived in. Lehigh once had a lynching there, conducted by the infamous KKK (Ku Klux Klan). Lehigh may be a small town, but it still has a historic past and some of the past history is tarnished.
At one time Lehigh was a thriving town, because of the coal mines. Lehigh became a ghost town when the trains started using oil instead of coal. Many miners were injured and some lost their lives in the coal mines. Some workers on the train tracks were also injured and some lost their lives. There are people who have visited or lived in Lehigh that say that this town is very haunted. Below are some of the paranormal entities that can be found in Lehigh, Oklahoma.
Owl Grocery Specter: Around this old building a large tall shadow is seen against the walls and on the ground. A few people have said they have been pushed or shoved by this specter. Megan Hall, a visitor says she was grabbed and then she felt like she was possessed. The possession lasted for about 6 minutes and after the entity left her body, she vomited all over the place.
Strippet Hand Demon: Legend has it, that back in the 1920s, 2 brothers were chopping wood. One brother told the other brother that if he places his hand on a block of wood, he will chop it off. The brother did exactly that and the brother chopped off his hand. After he chopped off his brother’s hand, he felt so bad about doing it, he threw the hand into a strippet. By throwing the hand into a strippet, the brother thought he was hiding the evidence. Later his brother died. In the strippet, people have claimed that they see a hand floating around in the water. The hand has all kinds of blisters on it and one resident who does not want to be identified says that the hand once choked him. Many people believe that hand is demonically possessed.
Coal Miner in Black: Residents have seen what appears to be a coal miner wandering around the thickets, he is dressed all in black. When one resident approached the miner, the miner said “why? “why?” Theory is that this is the ghost of a coal miner that lost his life in the mines.
Screaming Blue Lady: On one of the railroad tracks, late at night, people will see a woman dressed in blue and screaming at the top of her lungs. It is believed that she may have committed suicide at the railroad tracks. No one seems to know her story. Derin Danville from Texas says that his mother, a resident of Colgate, Oklahoma believes that the Screaming Blue Lady when she was alive found out that her husband was cheating on her, with her best friend and that she ran onto the railroad tracks into an oncoming train and died.
Flying Bobcat: Hunters have seen what appears to be a Bobcat that can leap from the tree and fly a considerable distance. The Flying Bobcat has been seen 3 times by hunters.
Lehigh Thunderbird: In 1897, a coal miner named Curly Bob made claim that he saw a large bird with a 30 foot wing span fly over Lehigh. Could this be some type of Thunderbird?
Paul Dale Roberts, HPI Esoteric Detective
Halo Paranormal Investigations (HPI International)
www.facebook.com/#!/groups/HPIinternational/
