What is in a Name?

Booger Hole is located in Clay County, West Virginia, specifically along what is now known as Rush Fork Road. While the area is a beautiful and sedate holler today, it was once a “wild west” territory where outlaws, horse thieves, and moonshiners would hide away. The name itself did not come from an official vote but grew out of the frightening stories parents used to keep their children from wandering into the dangerous area. Even though it is not a place you will find on Google Maps today, the name has been documented for over a century in local newspapers and legal records.

“It did have a reputation after the Civil War and on into the early 1900s of being a place where you wanted to scare your kids away from. Parents called it boogie hole mainly, don’t go up in there, boogers up in there, bad people or scary stories.”

Vigilantes and Vanished Peddlers

The history of Booger Hole is stained by a series of gruesome murders and disappearances that occurred primarily between the late 1800s and early 1900s. One of the most famous cases involved Preston Tanner, who was allegedly murdered for his property before his house was burned down to hide the crime. Because law enforcement was so sparse in the remote Appalachian hills, the local citizens eventually reached a breaking point and formed the “Clay County Mob” to drive out anyone with a criminal reputation. Other victims included an eighty year old woman named Lacy Anne Bogs, who was shot through her window while peeling apples because some believed she was a witch. Perhaps most chilling is the story of Andrew Hargus, a stonemason who disappeared without a trace. Years later, when his cousin’s cabin was torn down, a human skeleton was discovered hidden deep beneath the stone hearth.

“We the citizens of Clay County, seeing that we cannot get justice by law, have organized the Clay County mob. We have pledged our lives to driving you people from our country or kill you if we cannot catch and hang you.”

Spirits in the Stones

With so much tragedy in its past, it is no surprise that Booger Hole is considered one of the most haunted places in the state. Local legends tell of a weeping woman seen on old farmsteads and the sounds of invisible riders on the road. One deputy sheriff in the early 1900s reported staying in a local loft only to be kept awake all night by the sound of a phantom sharpening a knife. Some researchers believe these hauntings are tied to the “Stone Tape Theory,” which suggests that old stone structures and walls can absorb the energy of traumatic events and replay them over time. From mysterious lights appearing in the woods to the sound of “crying babies” in corners where no children are present, the spirits of the holler seem determined to keep their stories alive.

“I believe that there are unsettled spirits that may be trying to tell us things. Sometimes they are trying to tell their story, that they were murdered, or something happened to them traumatic and they just haven’t quite left this world in peace.”

Hungry for more chilling tales from the hills? To hear the full, unedited stories and see the research behind the legends, you need to check out the original video and dive deep into the mysteries of Creepalachia.