Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Welcome back. Hi.
Hi. That was very fair. That was very true. It was very spirited.
So I came back at your house this week and I got serenaded as I walked in the door by your son yelling poop at me. What on earth? I was like rolling out of the car, just whatever. And then I was like, what are we talking about poop?
He's young, so I was like, okay, fine. Like, it's like whatever. I don't really care. And then I was then serenaded by the Alexa.
And then I was like, oh, I'm going to go to the poop song. That was correct. And let me tell you, my life has changed. I'm just, you know, we're not getting copyrighted here, but I just want to say some of the lyrics.
That's some really solid lines. I hope it's solid. I mean, I don't have a gallbladder anymore, so it's really nice. I'm going to say it's kind of dicey, too.
Up in the air every time. Same. But some of the lyrics are like, oh gosh, you know, waiting for it to poop the plop. The poop to plop was a good one.
And once you finish wiping. I got on the lyrics now. Leaving Browntown or something like that. Hang on, hang on.
Sit and wait until the poop pops down. It was a really solid one. We hope. Wipe and wipe till Brown leaves town.
Yeah. That was also a really good one. I thought there was really another one. I mean, there was really- I mean, that was really- When you get that feeling?
Yeah. Yeah. Get that feeling. You know what to do.
Washing our hands is important. That's very important. And then we did, after we wash our hands, we do a potty dance. And it was kind of a polka tune.
It turns into a polka. It was a poo polka. It was so much happening. He was getting it.
He was in the potty. No, no, no. He was in the living room. He was fully dressed.
He was running around and dancing to the poop song. I didn't know the song existed. So earlier today, he said, Mama, ask Alexa to play the poop song. Because if he tries, he tries to go up to Alexa.
And I yak-cha! And she doesn't understand him. We need an Alexa for toddlers. Right.
Anyway. But she doesn't understand. So I told her to turn on the poop song. So poop song.
And I didn't think it was a song. And sure enough, it starts and he's singing this song too. So he must have heard it at school. Clearly he knew this song.
And he was singing about poop. That and a fire. Then we got the fire truck song. And I'm also a fan of the fire truck song.
Hayley had requested the poop song again. I did. And I lost it. Caused him out down and I was not prepared.
I was like, it's fine. It's fine because it's the fire truck song. I told him what happens when we have guests. When we have guests and they request a song, we have to.
I'm sorry. It was the poop song. Exactly. But then afterwards, it was a pop.
Exactly. Then afterwards, you wanted to hear the poop song. I know. Yeah.
Then we got into a request battle. It was fire truck. Poopy fire truck. We got some pop troll in there at one point.
We did. It was a rough song. It was a rough time trying to get him to go to bed. There was a lot of music.
There was a lot of music. I had to just eventually disappear. He has not helping the situation. Now he has called you Sadie for a long time.
Now he calls you Auntie Saly. Auntie Saly. We've gotten the Lee back. Yes.
Auntie Saly. Still working on the sound. He came out and he said, where's Auntie Saly? I said, oh she went home.
Because I'm sitting down here like he. Yeah. Well, I knew if you heard you. I want to see her.
I need to take a night to her makeup excuses. Yeah. That was a lot. So if you want to know more about poop, just ask my son.
He'd be happy to play a jam. Hey, who's going to be rocking out with this? Highly recommend it. It was motivational.
I was adding it to my Spotify playlist. It really gets to happen. Yeah, it gets us moving. It all gets to the waist.
It gets that cold and going. I said, I will never use the bathroom and not think of that song now. Exactly. See?
Change your life. Thanks to Alexa. You never know what you're going to learn when you come here. No, it was a lot.
I'm sorry. It's fine. Okay. How about we travel to Georgia this week?
We can't circle back to what just happened. I was eating one of these Oreo things. Yes. I asked if we could go to Georgia.
Holly had just put the cookie in her mouth. She didn't extract the full cookie to answer the question and thought we could just roll on highway without me laughing hysterically. She thought we could be professional. Clearly she was wrong.
I'm so wrong. I still had my bowl. I just don't know if it's like a third of the way full wine bottle. She left it here and then said she'd come back for it.
She knew I wouldn't drink it. It's terrible. I'm drinking from the bottle for two weeks now. I'm really sure I had a problem.
We haven't made it to the bottle yet. It was only half full when he gave it to me so. It's fine. It feels appropriate.
Okay. Let's go to Georgia. Yeah, we're never really in Georgia. We're not in my damn cooking.
Eat your cookie. Okay. So we are going to talk about Lake Lanier in Georgia. I got a lot of this information, all this information from an interesting article written by Austin Harvey and it was really solid.
If you want to skip this podcast and go read the article, I have to understand. But we're going to talk about it. Did you know that Lake Lanier was constructed on top of a town called Oscarville, Georgia? I did not know.
It's just underneath. It's insane. So Oscarville, Georgia was a historically Black town in Georgia. And in 1956, it was filled in with water.
So had it been abandoned or they told everybody to leave? No, we're going to get there. So Lake Lanier is a man made lake. And it is one of the most dangerous bodies of water in America.
Because the buildings, the remains of these buildings are just below the surface. So they ensnare boats and swimmers and people get caught and drowned. Oh, gosh, on the tops of buildings, which is crazy. We need a home there underwater.
Oh, I was on. I was on the list. We need to get the podcast from under there. Great.
So every year more than 10 million people visit Lake Lanier and it's in Gainesville, Florida is the name of the town that lakes in now. It's Gainesville, Florida? Georgia. Sorry, Gainesville, Georgia.
It is it's a huge lake. Have you been there before? Yeah. I've not been there before.
I don't think. Maybe I'll go. My uncle lives in Georgia will be going through there all the time. Yeah.
And it looks super peaceful on the surface. Very tranquil. I don't think. But there are over 700 deaths in that lake since 1956 when it was constructed.
So obviously with this many deaths, it's not super surprising that people think it's haunted. So there's a very controversial, like the circumstances around how the lake was made, super controversial. There's a history of some pretty significant racial violence in the ruins of this former town that are right below the surface of the lake. So there might be some truth to this whole haunted business.
Very well could be. All right. Let's talk about how the lake was made. In 1956, the United States Army Corps of Engineers were tasked with creating a lake to provide water and power to parts of Georgia to help prevent the Kauruchi River.
Chata-Huchi. Chata-Huchi. Chata-Huchi. Chata-Huchi.
Chata-Huchi. Chata-Huchi. River from flooding. So they chose to construct the lake near Oscarville in Forsyth County, Georgia.
It was named after the poet and Confederate soldier, Sidney Lenier. Lake Lenier has over 692 miles of shoreline, making it the largest lake in Georgia. And it's far larger than the town of Oscarville. And this Corps of Engineers forcefully emptied the town so that the lake could be built.
I don't like that. Where did these individuals go? So, okay. So in total, there were 250 families that were displaced, roughly 50,000 acres of farmland was destroyed, 20 cemeteries were either relocated or otherwise engulfed by the water over its five-year construction period.
So what a big FU. So like a whole town to be like, well, we want to put a lake here. Get out. Get out.
We're going to flood you. And like how, like, people have sentimental... They've probably been there for years. Like, barely.
Into the land and like, especially like rural, like farming. Like, there's something that's so... It's your livelihood. Right.
And that's like the land is important too. Like, that's a big part of your... But also, you know, we weren't looking at some other areas. Oh, no, no, no.
Let's pick this area because we can just move these individuals. Right. They're not important because they're... It's a predominantly black community and they don't matter.
So... Well, even you're dead, don't matter. Right. Yeah, we'll move some of them, but the rest here.
Whatever. Whatever. They're just dead. I mean, it's so cruel.
Yeah, it's really gross. So the town of Oscarville wants to say, you know, clear it everybody out, forcefully. Yeah. It wasn't demolished before the lake was filled because...
Why bother? Right. I just filled up the area with water, just flooded it and left all the buildings standing. Which is common.
I mean, a lot of these underwater towns, you can still see like church people and that kind of thing. Yeah. Divers in Shulayk linear have reported finding fully intact streets, walls and houses, which makes it the most dangerous underwater surface in the US. Because it has all this stuff.
And sure, even with divers going to investigate, I mean, you're risking your life. You are. I mean, that's probably not recommended. So all of these flooded buildings, coupled with declining water levels over the years, are presumed to be kind of the major factor in what's caused by the city.
And that's a factor in what's causing these high number of deaths that occur every year. Like we say, catching swimmers, holding them under, damaging boats, causing them to sink. And it's like a deep lake. Yeah, it is.
So it's like, I mean, if you go, and it's so large that if you go down in the middle of the lake, like, and there's nobody around, kind of gone. Great. Like, I mean, where your life jacket. Hallease advice for life.
Yeah. Where your life jacket. So deaths at Lake linear aren't really the typical sort of, you know, lake accidents you think about. Like drown, fell off the detsky, you know, random, like, whole and boats sinking, whatever.
There are reports of boats randomly bursting into flames. God, that would be your boat. Crazy freak accidents. People that just go missing in the lake.
What the heck? And just really crazy unexplained. I need to pick tragic events. Yeah, it's wild.
So some people believe that, you know, the dark past is really responsible for all these incidents. I can see that. So there's some legends that the vengeful and restless spirits of those whose graves were flooded. And many of those are, you know, black residents and those that were persecuted and driven out by these violent white mobs are behind the curse.
I guess. Yeah. So I mean, like, yeah. Okay.
So if this wasn't awful enough, let's dive into the racist history of Oscar Bill. So the town of Oscar Bill was once this really like bustling, very turn of the century is community that had really come up. It was, you know, a big place for black culture in the south at the time. There were over 1100 black landowners that, you know, owned businesses and operated farms and did all of this, you know, amazing things to make this community thrive in just Forsyth County.
On September 9th of 1912, an 18 year old white woman named May Crow was raped and murdered near Browns Bridge on the Chattahoochee River. Banks, which was right by Oscar Bill. So, of course, who did we blame? Of course.
You know, and a horrific thing that this woman was, you know, raped and murdered. I mean, like, not discounting, like, that this is an awful thing that happened to this person, but we need to figure out who's responsible. Right. According to the Oxford American, which I believe was a newspaper, May Crow's murder was pinned on four young black individuals who happened to live in the area nearby.
These were siblings, Oscar and Trussie Jane Daniel. They were both eight, Oscar was 18 and Jane was 22. And then their 16 year old cousin Ernest Knox. And there was also another individual with Robert who went by Big Rob Edwards who was 24.
So Edward was arrested for the rape and murder and taken to jail in coming Georgia, which is like the county seat of Forsyth County. A day later, white mob invaded Edwards jail cell. They shot him, dragged him to the streets and then hanged him from a telephone pole outside the courthouse. So they lynched him.
I mean, that's what happened. A month later, Ernest Knox and Oscar Daniel appeared in court for the rape and murder of May Crow. Of course, they were found guilty by the jury, you know, just over an hour's worth of a trial. Some 5,000 people gathered to watch those teenagers behind.
So they were 18 and 16 years old. Wow. I'm sorry, they were 18 and 22. Still, just minor.
Yeah. So. The other boy, Trussie, who was the 16 year old, the charges against him were dismissed. But it's widely believed that all three of those boys that were killed were innocent of the crime.
And how unfortunate, you know, this is horrific that this happened to these boys, but also what an injustice did not have found who was actually responsible for this. Like somebody just got away with rape and murder. Probably for their life, probably some of the ones who are screaming and yelling. For the ones that were dead.
Yeah. The ones trying to deflect. Following Edward lynching, there were some white mobs known as Knight Riders who started going door to door across 4th County with torches and guns. And they burned black businesses and churches and demanded that all black citizens vacate the county.
So this event, you know, led to, you know, a lot of black individuals leaving the county in fear of their safety. To this day, less than 5% of 4th County population was black. Which is, I mean, you can track that back to 1912. I mean, that community never recovered from that.
And like, how could you, especially in Georgia at that time? Yeah. I mean, anytime that could have happened, you could have been accused of. And, you know, your life was at risk.
Yeah. It's really awful. And it is still, I mean, this stuff like this still happens today. This is not just an issue that happened, you know.
Which makes sense that it was only 250 people in the town at the point. Yeah. And like us, when they started the process in the early 50s. Yeah.
And this is, you know, not saying, I mean, the south is the south. Like, we're from here, we know. The south is inherently has a bad rap or being a racist area. I mean, right.
Historically, yeah. And I mean, it's a problem. It's not just a south problem. It is a nationwide problem.
I think, you know, we're, we're, it's really easy to say, well, there, you know, it's the south or just racism. That's all these things. But I think racism exists anywhere. Oh, it's 100%.
It exists anywhere. And as much as they're sort of a, and I can say this as a southerner. So, you know, y'all know what it is. Just hold on.
Yeah. Racism is not solely a southern issue. It exists up north too, whether you want to believe it or not. Yeah.
It's dangerous not to. Oh, my gosh. That's eyes wide closed. Yeah.
Yeah. It's insane. I mean, it is happening in front of us every single day. Like it's still, this is not like, this is not an issue that ended, you know, with the you know, with, you know, so like the didn't end with civil rights.
Like we've so, and this is, I'm preaching, hopefully preaching with the choir, because I feel like we try on this podcast to make sure that we talk about this kind of stuff. But as two white women, like it's not something that we're, you know, always want to take up space. Because what are our voices really do? You know, want to leave that to not leave it too.
But you know what I mean? Oh, I think it's an, it's important to be open with this conversation and also open and knowing that I just, you know, for many, many years, it was always, and I am just going to say this as a southern woman. So always the south is bad, the south is racist, the south is dumb, the south, you know, all these things, you know, we're just ignorant people. All of those stereotypes that have always been put on us, and I want to say, you know, yeah, you know, we're ignorant about some things, everybody is, and we believe in that.
But no, I mean, there's ignorance everywhere. There's racism everywhere. There's stupidity everywhere. And to say that it's a southern problem is just complete falsehood.
Yeah. And that also shuts off anyone who is maybe up north or somewhere else who is also committing acts of violence towards individuals of color. Well, and I think it's dangerous too when we say like, oh, the south's just like that, because then we let people get away with things. And that says that's okay.
It says it's okay. Like, oh, that's just how the south is just like that. No, I mean, yes, there is horrific racism in the south, there's horrific racism everywhere. But we don't get a pass because we're the south, you know, like, we need to work even harder to make sure that, you know, we're taking care of each other and combating this in any way we can, which is why it's important to vote and educate yourselves.
And read material. Right. And all the things. So do all of those things.
And like, this is a thing like, I did not know about this history of this place. I don't know. I've been path there many times. Right.
And like, this is something that like, obviously I've heard about like, when you're in like all the crazy deaths and like, things like that. But I had no idea that this history existed, which is so crazy. So if you, if you Google pictures of it, which I have to do between eating my Oreos and there's actually a photograph of a tree that had been in Oscarville, probably is like a baby and is when some of the water received when there is, you know, not as much rain, the tree has continued to grow and it is growing up out of the water. That's insane.
Yeah. Yeah. I have to look at pictures. I like to do all the searches.
Yeah. Like the second you started talking, it was like, oh my gosh, which I know all of you are, you know, saying to yourself, gosh, I gotta get on the Google. Yeah, get on the Google. Okay.
So there's all this really horrible history, which, you know, many places have, but now we've learned about this history. Let's talk about some hauntings. Oh, okay. Okay.
So the most popular rich legend surrounding like linear is the Lady of the Lake. Oh, I like that. Uh huh. In 1958, there were two young girls named Dilea May Parker Young and Susie Roberts.
They were at a dance in town, but had decided to leave the dance earlier. I guess I thought like this is lame. I'm out of here. They're not playing the potty song.
They're not playing the poops on the house. The poops on the house. I gotta get out of there. On my home, they stopped to get gas and then they left without paying for it.
Oh, scandal. Huge scandal. They were driving across the bridge over Lake Lanier when they lost control of the car, spiraling off the edge and crashing into the lake below. Oh.
A year later, a fisherman out on the lake came across a decomposed unrecognizable body floating near the bridge. At the time, no one got identified who belonged to you. It was so badly decomposed. That lady come out of these composed.
It wasn't until 1990 that officials discovered a 1950s towards the Dan at the bottom of the lake with the remains of Susie Roberts still inside. With that information, they were able to identify the body found 30 years earlier as Dilea May Parker Youngs. So that's just kind of crazy. I love to look at that car and see what it looked like.
Yeah. I'll be all right. Yeah, it's just crazy. But apparently locals already knew who she was.
Like they already knew that that's who the body was. They had reportedly seen her, still in her blue dress that she was wearing that night, wandering near the bridge at night with handless arms. Oh, nubs. So that we call her nubs.
Nubs. And she was waiting to drag unsuspecting lake goers down with her. Down to the bottom. Oh, no, nubs.
Say it ain't so. It's like, how could you grab them with her handless arms? Because they're nubs. Just like a 30-day amputee out there.
But like the visual in my brain is not coming. Oh, we're going to get negative feedback. At least talking about nubs. You said nubs are true.
That is true. That is true. But you did the emotion. That was surprising.
I do have my sleeve dropped around to try to do a bear hold and jump. That's true. You're attacking from behind and then pulling around. Was she ever successful?
I mean, I haven't heard of a lot of ghost killing people. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
You're the right up here. So there's also apparently another shadowy figure that reported a scene sitting on a raft. Inching himself across the water with a long pole and holding up a lantern. Wow, that's a lot of work.
Yeah. He clearly didn't have no. That's a pole dexterity. Okay, good.
Because otherwise that would be a real good idea. Yeah. So those are kind of the hauntings. Okay, just a quick side note.
If you saw a nubs at a bridge or you saw a guy with a huge pole in a lantern trying to drag his ass across the river, wouldn't she be like, what the f? Nah. She would be drinking her bottle of wine. You get it.
You get it. You get it. You get it. You get it.
You get it. You get it. You get it. You get it.
You get it. You get it. You get it. You get it.
You get it. You get it. You get it. It's not a bridge.
That's going to be a movie. So I think there is a documentary and several documentaries out there about this place. I went to watch them all the same. I loved documentaries.
There are no life guards on duty in the swimming areas. They would be dead. Right? Why add extra safety?
Right? It's already… We're not paying you to do nothing. Right. Because it would be a search and rescue, search and recovery.
Yeah. Absolutely. probably but I just was curious now like I wanted to talk about the hauntings I was like you know what I should probably find these out and 2022 just in the first six months there were 14 boating related fatalities like I'm 67 injuries and 114 incidents why do people keep coming here I don't know maybe they don't know the no they know they know they know they know they know they know they love it they just want to see no they just want to see the nubs so there's not a whole obviously there's not a lot of like info out for 2023 but there's 2022 data because it's like a thing people do they like report on the deaths because either something like June of 22 I mean we're looking at 14 fatalities that is astronomical yeah so August 28th of 2022 21-year-old was swimming with two friends at the old federal campground when he began to struggle in underwater so that's what's so crazy and like I've heard these stories before like it's like you'll be out swimming and then all of a sudden like somebody just goes under and they can't find them nubs grab nubs grabbed them and they're under yeah so they're getting the theory is that they're getting caught on like this pieces of buildings or trees or whatever that are still under that it's just pulling them down yeah they like and they can't get back up so something to think about in the ghost world the it seems like the lake one of these two girls from the 50s right and so they were sort of the first maybe casualties of this and subsequently now they are recruiting for the lake possibly possibly yeah I mean it's just like that's all of these company all these drownings like it's insane like why would you go here I would know why would you slim here nope nope that's insane I mean I'm sure you know in the grand scheme of things if you have 10 million people visiting every year like a few hundred deaths probably a lot yeah so what are you doing this weekend you want to go to Lakeland I guess we better I want to see no I do I mean I want to can we just sit at your house and just we'll just watch the documentary on I think we should TV should okay let's do that instead yeah the lot my son's a little tiny yeah we can pull we can just put our feet in it pretend it worth the lake now look us we'll put like you have I'm looking around here he's got a train set we could put that under like little buildings oh that's true oh yeah sure he'd be upset but you know well you gotta take one for the two right I mean mommy's a podcast we gotta we gotta be really exactly yeah we'll be drinking her wine yep I will we'll be watching at it we'll report back we'll like know how it went and yeah hopefully she won't drown actually as a matter of fact there is a lovely little life vest my son little floaty vest on where as for the pool so if you can you can put that on it can be yours yeah well and there's a thing there's not like we're gonna dang life-ess why would you not why would you get into a large body of water like that I don't care if you woke up the biggest work on the planet I'm wearing a life jacket exactly sorry about it I'm gonna have on floaties I don't care yeah I'm 100% wearing a life-check I'm out on a lake where I'm like I cannot physically my out of shape human body swim to the shore exactly I'm gonna have a life-ess time whole time weird tan lines I don't care who cares about tan lines you live I'm aware I'm a wear my life jacket crazy that's it fully Dela May had on her life jacket but she couldn't button up so no and you know there's no why no I still can't figure out why she doesn't have hands if you did can't you just like grow your hands back or something like what did her hands come off when she was like decomposing is that she was found handless that wasn't in the report well then what is that she just it makes it more creepy maybe she's nubby it would be more creepy to me if she was armless oh that'd be cool I had to do it a lot with her mouth how would you pull you down like go drag you put her jump sounds like a crazy like hold you're the water you're like wow wow steal definitely she's been doing her Susan summer's I master yeah why that's a good so like how old is Holly yeah no I don't want to see nubs I do and I think it's worth Haley going to see no she's gonna be FaceTiming me so I have a child to raise I can't die have a dog your grandma would easily take care of your dog okay just take your wine it'll be fine okay oh we're a life jacket FaceTiming but I know you're in the car with me I don't know how you think you're getting out of this clever I'll be driving and then I'll do that you can drive I'll you drive over the bridge over the bridge and then you'll call me nubs yeah maybe you'll call me stubs maybe like half of my lower half of me gone I'll really scare the heck out of you maybe hey stubs stubs and nubs stubs and nubs you have been twins mmm I'm working then wish probably in this yeah we got to sentence okay if you want to email us some of your reflections have you been to Lakeland here have you experienced anything crazy please share with us at you know our email actually Haley's the only one who reviews the email so yeah if you want to tell her something deep in person you can email us at mountain mysteries dot Appalachian at gmail.com you can find us on Facebook at mountain mysteries tales from Appalachia you can find us on Instagram at mountain mysteries dot Appalachia and patreon patreon.com slash mountain mysteries Haley do you have a shout out yeah yeah get on this girlfriend and she's too busy looking at them. I'm not trying to find a fun one.
Let's do. I'm going to tell you. Oh sure that one as well as Kokomo Indiana. Kokomo.
Jamaica. I want to take it to your commute. I'm not going to take it because I don't want to get it. Indiana?
Well hell let me get anything anywhere. No. Yeah okay. That's it.
I love it. Don't the Kokomo will get there fast and take it slow. All the way to Indiana? All the way to Indiana.
Alright I'm going with Nub. She's driving but careful over those bridges. Alright we'll see you next week. God I hope so.
Bye. Bye. Bye.