Many people travel the back roads between Topeka Kansas and just east to Lawrence Kansas.  There are only a couple of main paved roads joining the two cities but many back roads. One such road is the old river road. As the name says it travels along the Kansas river from Topeka to Lecompton then off to the south and on east to Lawrence.  This is a well traveled road and in the past not to populated.  The back road was put on the map by Paul Harvey when he showed a map of where the devil weed was grown in WWII for rope. Within two weeks an arrest was made of some men picking marijuana on the back road.  It was a fact it grew so thick and high you could not see past the ditch and it grew almost 15 feet high.  In the 60’s and early 70’s it was a thing to do to show some one where pot grew so thick you could pick it from your windows of your care and never get out.

          But that is just one story from the river road. Now along this road there were many spots that over looked the river or just led nowhere. Only because over time no one used them.  Remember this area was used during the Civil war and the roads were cut into the hills for use by horse and later cars.  One site was a deep riven which became a huge dump. No one cared it was handy. But locals said that deep in all that trash were bodies from a serial killer of the 40’s. No proof the dump was always full of all types of stuff from old cars and stoves to just plain trash. Dead animals were common so the smell of decay was common.  As I said no proof of any bodies were ever found.

          There were many small houses in the woods.  Some were said to of been haunted by the ghost of settlers who were killed by Quantral’s Raiders in the Civil War. Or by the gangsters of the 30’s makin their getaway from their crimes. The road was a know lovers lane by all being so remote.  Some say that the ghost of some that ended in a not so pleasant night and bodies were buried in the woods. Still no proof of this.  Just another story.