More Than We Bargained For

This scary story comes from blog reader, friend and cousin, Bill Lattin.  Bill grew up in Owensboro Kentucky and in this story we find him as a high school kid out for a bit of teenage adventure.  I’m sure we have all been in situations like this, in which part of the fun was the anticipation of danger, but regret hits us like a baseball bat when we realize that we just might be in a position of being truly threatened.  -Mary

A neighbor kid down the street was a couple of years older than I. We got to be friends because we both built and flew model airplanes. This story is about us and another friend of his. I didn't like the friend who I thought was a jerk and usually avoided my neighbor when he was around. I was 16.

Panther Creek meanders through Daviess County south of Owensboro. Owensboro is like a bump on the Ohio River flood plane. In the '37 flood, the only way in or out of here was in a boat. It seems like Panther Creek is either overflowing its banks and flooding half of Daviess County or is practically empty. When Home Depot and Sam's Cub was built recently, they had to fill the cornfields with 6' of dirt to get the stores above the 100 year flood plane. The land near the creek is still mostly covered by thick woods. In places there were dirt firebreak roads and in one place there was a trail along the creek.

I don't remember now how or who heard about this, but somehow one of these guys heard a rumor that there would be a KKK gathering along the trail. We decided to go see if the KKK was really going to meet or if something else was going on. It would be an adventure.

We drove the gravel road out to the bridge over Panther Creek around 11. Something was going on. There were about 20 cars parked out there in the middle of nowhere. We still thought the KKK story was BS and headed down the trail. How about a HS beer bust and hot dog roast? Heck, everybody at OHS "knew" half the kids a OCHS were a bunch of drunks who seemed to have an unlimited supply of beer and liquor. The trail was only about a foot wide with tall weeds on both sides. We didn't need a light to stay on the trail. It was nearly pitch black under the trees.  A quarter mile down the trail we started to see light flickering through the woods from a fire. We kept going until we could see 25 or 30 guys in white sheets and hoods around a huge bond fire through the trees. There was a cross made out of saplings. As soon as we got there we heard the start of someone being whipped. JESUS CHRIST! Lets get the hell out of here right now! . SHIT! A dim kerosene lantern is coming toward us on the trail from the road. We slid down the steep 15' high creek bank on our stomachs and hoped the 3 guys in the sheets wouldn't see us or the weeds we flattened. They didn't and we got the hell out of there a lot faster than we went in. 

All three of us had the shakes and hardly said a word.  I just wanted to go home. My parents were half asleep when I got home. They weren't enthusiastic about calling the sheriff or KSP at all and told me to go to bed. I don't remember ever being that scared again.

This was one adventure we didn't share or brag about. I swore one friend to secrecy a couple of weeks later and told him. He didn't believe it. And he still didn't believe it after I took him out to the site and he saw the remains of the bonfire and cross.

25 years later I told this story to my wife's uncle when we were living on his farm in Ohio County.  I was shocked when he wasn't surprised. He said his father had been a member of the KKK. His story was that the KKK in Ohio County was like a vigilante police force and didn't have anything to do with suppression of blacks...probably because you'd be hard pressed to find a black man in Ohio County.  If you were a lazy drunk, beat your wife or didn't feed your family, some armed KKK members would arrive on horseback and warn you. If the warning didn't work, you'd get a beating you wouldn't soon forget.

- Bill

There are an estimated 6,000 – 8,000 Klan members today divided between over 100 local chapters.  Of course in the 1920s that number was estimated to be more like 5 million.  It’s frightening to me to think of all these people filled with so much hate for others! - Mary

Update- September 2012-- The author of this story, William J. Lattin Jr. passed away on September 15 2012, at the age of 74.  His friendship will be greatly missed.  -Mary