For most of the six years that I lived in North Dakota, I loved calling it home. However, most people wouldn't expect such a "boring" and out of the way state wouldn't come with a couple of exciting ghost stories or two, but the good news is, though I had no idea during my time in the state about any of them, North Dakota doesn't disappoint. Today's story will be focusing on a dusty road off County 9 that goes through the Tetrault Woods near Walhalla, ND.
Walhalla was once instrumental in the fur trade
The town of Walhalla, which is about an hour and a half drive from Grand Forks, was one of the earliest settlements in North Dakota and the entire Upper Midwest. Established in 1845, fur traders from France and England would trickle in to collect furs, till the land, and convert Native Americans to Catholicism. Throughout history, Walhalla had its roots firmly planted in the fur trade.
The North West Company fur trading post was established in 1797 by David Thompson, a British-Canadian cartographer. There's also the Gingras Trading post built in the 1840s by businessman Antoine Blanc Gingras. You'll also find the Kittson Trading post, formed in 1843 by an American Fur Company representative named Norman Kitson at Walhalla State Historical Park. Kittson is the oldest building in North Dakota is protected by the State Historical Society. And, as we all know, with a town as old as this, there are bound to be juicy ghost stories.
The dusty road off County 9 I mentioned happens to be the site of one of the most whispered about ghost stories in the entire state--the Legend of White Lady Lane. Before we get to the stories, we'll talk about the facts. The Ward County Independent, the official news supplier of Ward County and Minot (where I used to live and receive this paper), printed a story on November 10th of 1921: "Pembina Peddler Kills Girl and Then Attempts Suicide."
The tragic true story of a young woman's death at the hands of a scorned man
The true story details the death of sixteen-year-old Anna Story who was killed by a Syrian Peddler named Sam Kalil, who is pictured above. "Anna Story, age 16 is dead. Her mother is in a local hospital with a broken jaw, and Sam Kalil, a Peddler, is nearly dead from loss of blood after an alleged attempted double murder and suicide."
The story goes on to talk about the children's accounts, Anna's brothers who were only eight and eleven. They said Kalil was "jealous of a suitor of Anna's" and "stole into the room where Mrs. Story and her daughter were sleeping and shot her through the breast." When Anna's mother attempted to help her daughter, Sam retaliated by shooting her in the face, shattering her jaw. Sam attempted to end his own life, but the gun he pulled failed to discharge. And the knife he tried to slit his throat with was dull. When the police arrived on the scene, Sam gave himself up.
He was sentenced to life in a Bismarck prison but set free ten years later, at age 71, to reside with family in Minnesota.
Anna haunts Eddie's Bridge every Halloween
As for Anna, legend says she stayed behind. Every Halloween, residents of the town say Anna walks near a swamp by Eddie's Bridge off County 9, still in the nightgown she wore the night of her murder. And despite the newspapers story, many different versions of the truth have sprouted over the years.
One says Anna was a young girl who became pregnant outside of marriage. Her parents forced her to marry the man, and after they did, their child died. Anna was so heartbroken she hung herself from the bridge. Her ghost can still be a sign hanging in her wedding dress. Some say she is a woman who hung herself in the 1940s after her husband didn't come back from war.
Other versions say Sam the Salesman took her down the dusty road and took advantage. No matter what version of the story you hear, though, it is always tragic, and always scary. Would you drive down White Lady Lane?
https://walhalland.org/history.php
https://hpr1.com/index.php/feature/culture/white-lady-lane
https://depositphotos.com/29196029/stock-photo-asphalt-road.html
https://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/white-lady-lane/