Sloss Furnace!

 

Sloss Furnace all started with a man named Col. James Withers Sloss. In 1871 he struck a deal with the L&N Railroad to complete a 67 mile gap of the South and North Railroad between Birmingham and Decatur. For nearly 90 years, Sloss Furnaces produced massive amounts of iron and ultimately gave rise to the city of Birmingham. Now, a National Historic Landmark, with is web of pipes and tall smokestacks it also makes for a great haunted trail!!

It being October, I decided to try and get in the Halloween Spirit by getting a group together to experience Sloss’ Fright Furnace! I haven’t been to Sloss since I was 17, so it was well overdue to head downtown for a few screams and giggles!!

The trail got off to a great start! A “dead employee” of Sloss explained the story of Sloss and gave us permission to begin winding through the furnaces that once produced all that iron. It was very eerie walking through this place not only because people were jumping out at you with loud noises were everywhere, but I just kept imagining walking through there alone at night; that would be purely terrifying!! It gives me chills just thinking about it!!

I made it through the majority of the trail by clinging on to my date and burying my head to keep from getting really scared, in fact I really only had one real scream until the very end. We walked into the clown’s portion and I about lost it.

We all very well know, if you act scared, they will try to scare you even more. I handled the first two clowns without them knowing my phobia just fine. It wasn’t until the third clown popped out and scared the ever loving mess out of me, that I lost it. I proceeded to scream bloody murder and took off running, leaving my date in the dust. The clown followed me all the way to the end of the trail, hovering over me so badly that I actually began welling up tears. As we approached the final stretch of the trail he picked up another clown and there on the spinning 3D bridge, I was cornered. Trapped with a clown on top of me and another in front of me they stopped me from being able to move forward. I just stood there taking their harassment. Knowing I was about to lose it, my date was just about to tell them to back off, but before he could do so, I snapped!! The clowns immediately backed off once they saw I was dead serious. I rounded the last corner and finally I was at the exit. The whole group had a great time razzing me for the rest of the evening and so I suppose it made for a good story, but lets just say, I am over haunted houses, haunted trails, and so help me if I see a clown, they are likely to wind up not able to walk ever again!!!!

After the sheer terror wore off, several of us headed out to The Blue Monkey for a very much needed cocktail and I got to meet up with my roommate and our good friend Nolte!