Stull Cemetery - Stull Kansas

OK, Kris saw this in his book "Weird USA", we were on our way back from Iowa, it was just a little bit out of the way, so we thought we would check it out. After following some directions from others off the internet, it was fairly easy to find. This cemetery supposedly has one of the seven gates to hell and supposed to be very haunted.
http://www.prairieghosts.com/stull.html
Also, this cemetery was mentioned in the critically aclaimed film "Turbulence 3:Heavy Metal"
http://www.heavymetalhorror.com/turbulence3.html

Now, I dont get scarred of cemeteries, but I will admit I will not go to any at night, OK I am a big pussy, but I want to be able to see the graves and the details and just enjoy the beauty in the daylight. But after reading about other peoples visits to Stull, I just couldnt get out of the car, I dont think it was that I thought it was haunted or anything, more about peoples accounts of getting shot at for tresspassing. So I dont have alot,just a few pics from the road. Kris says he is going to take a road trip there when he gets his license.


Ok, now that Jenny is off her soapbox about being a wuss, im going to actually give you some history on Stull Kansas. To start, myth. Pope John Paul II, on his way to Colorado, supposedly told his pilots to fly around eastern Kansas to avoid "Un-Holy Land." Some of these legends include the “fact” that the Devil also appears at Stull on the last night of winter or the first night of spring. He comes to visit a witch that is buried there. Coincidentally, an old tombstone bearing the name “Wittich” is located fairly close to the old church. It should also be mentioned that there are rumors that an old tree in the graveyard, which was cut down a year or so ago, was once used as a gallows for condemned witches. There is also said to be a grave in the cemetery that holds the bones of a “child of Satan”, who was born of the Devil and a witch. The child was so deformed that he only lived for a few days and the body was buried in Stull. Some say that his ghost may walk here, as there supposedly was a photo taken a few years ago that shows a “werewolf-like boy” peering out from behind a tree.

Stull Cemetery, and the abandoned church that rests next to it, is located in the tiny, nearly forgotten Kansas town of Stull. There is not much left of the tiny village, save for a few houses, the newer church and about twenty residents. However, the population of the place allegedly contains a number of residents that are from beyond this earth! In addition to its human inhabitants, the town is also home to a number of legends and strange tales that are linked to the crumbling old church and the overgrown cemetery that can be found atop Stull’s Emmanuel Hill. For years, stories of witchcraft, ghosts and supernatural happenings have surrounded the old graveyard. It is a place that some claim is one of the "seven gateways to hell."

The legends say that these stories have been linked to Stull for more than 100 years, but none of them made it into print until the 1970's. In November 1974, an article appeared in the University of Kansas student newspaper that spoke of a number of strange occurrences in the Stull churchyard. According to the article, Stull was “haunted by legends of diabolical, supernatural happenings” and the legends asserted that the cemetery was one of the two places on earth where the devil appears in person two times each year. It said that the cemetery had been the source of many legends in the area, stories that had been told and re-told for over a century.

The piece also went on to say that most students learned of Stull's diabolical reputation from their grand-parents and older individuals, but that many of them claimed first-hand encounters with things that could not explain. One student claimed to have been grabbed by the arm by something unseen, while others spoke of unexplained memory loss when visiting the place. Like many other locations of this type, the tales of devil worship and witchcraft also figured strongly into the article.

But were the stories actually true?

Not according to the residents of Stull, who claimed to have never even heard the stories before.

But such stories have a strong hold on people, as evidenced by the reaction to the article that claimed that the devil would appear in Stull Cemetery on the night of the Spring Equinox and again on Halloween. On March 20, 1978, more than 150 people waited in the cemetery for the arrival of the devil. The word also spread that the spirits of those who died violent deaths, and were buried there, would return from the grave. Unfortunately, the only spirits that showed up that night came in bottles and cans... but this did not stop the stories from spreading.

One story told of two young men who were visiting Stull Cemetery one night and became frightened when a strong wind began blowing out of nowhere. They ran back to their car, only to find that the vehicle had been moved to the other side of the highway and was now facing in the opposite direction. Another man claimed to experience this same anomalous wind, but inside of the church rather than in the graveyard. He claimed that the sinister air current knocked him to the floor and would not allow him to move for some time. Incidentally, it is inside of this same church where “witnesses” say that no rain will fall... even though the crumbling building has no roof!

The legends also say that the Devil has been appearing here since the 1850’s and insist that the original name of the town was “Skull” and that the later corruption of that into “Stull” was simply to cover the fact that the area was steeped in black magic. It was said that the witchcraft-practicing early settlers were so repentant about their past deeds that they changed the name of the town. In truth, the town was called “Deer Creek Community” until 1899, when the last name of the first postmaster, Sylvester Stull, was adopted as the name of the village. The post office closed down in 1903, but the name stuck.


Located off of I-35 between Topeka and Lawrence, It is a great day trip. I would advise against night visits, not for the scary factor, but the local police do nightly rounds and residents have low tempers for trespassers, and, being the midwest, we own guns.