"The Gate" Investigation

In a small clearing in the far northern suburbs is where a small school house used to stand, according to legend.  The house was torn down years ago.  All that remains is a huge, black iron gate.  Legend has it that a lunatic broke into the school one day and killed all of the children, decapitating some of them in the process.  It is further told that, with the disembodied heads in hand; he walked over to the gate and staked their heads on the sharp points of the fence.

However, this author wasn’t able to trace this story or the tragic events beyond folk tales and legends.  Is it true or the product of a vivid story-teller and the story being handed down from one generation to the next?

What can be said of the legend that is true is that at one point in time the land behind the gate did serve as a camp.  The St. Francis Boys Camp opened for operation sometime after 1950.  Before that it was used as the Katherine Dodridge Kreigh Budd Memorial Home for Children.  This orphanage for over 100 children opened in 1925.

Address: Rt. 137, near Independence Grove Forest Preserve (31740 N. River Rd.), Libertyville , IL .  60048

History: The Gate still remains as a memory.  It’s told that you can still hear children crying and see their heads on the gate every now and then.  It is also said that, even if you don’t know the story, looking at The Gate can produce an overwhelming sense of grief in the onlooker. However, this author wasn’t able to trace this story or the tragic events beyond folk tales and legends.  Is it true or the product of a vivid story-teller and the story being handed down from one generation to the next?

The Ghost Research Society investigated The Gate on April 29, 2023 team members included: Ron Lovatt, Mike Rosario and Dale Kaczmarek with help from Scott Markus and Wendy Lynn Markus.

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Equipment setup: Digital recorders, Melmeter with telescopic probe, Ovilus V, 4k Sony Nightshot camcorder.

Experiments performed; a single Ovilus V session in dictionary mode was conducted deep in the woods near several evergreen trees. While conducting a Ovilus session in phonetic mode, the digital recorder died. Markus indicated that those trees were most likely part of landscaping around former buildings on the property and probably weren’t native to the area. Rosario, Lovatt stayed on the trailhead while Wendy elected to stay by the cars for security.

Personal experiences:

Dale Kaczmarek: I felt nothing out of the ordinary while back in the woods, however Scott and I did find some interesting items from the history of the former buildings including drainage pipes, white porcelain (probably from sinks or toilets), fire hydrants and several clearings that could have been buildings or other structures.

We walked around trying to locate the pool but were unable to find it. There was, however, a large paved area near the gate line in a large field that was definitely associated with some structure and paved roadways of the past.

I shot a lot of video on a 4k Sony Nightshot camcorder while walking through the underbrush and forested area. My digital recorder and Melmeter both died even though there were fresh batteries before starting our investigation.

Evidence collected:  Nothing!

Words spoken by the Ovilus V in dictionary mode – angry, preacher, starve, spoon, gag, older, conditions, alone, bunny, egg, hair, sacrifice, minute, list, elemental, got, crescent, tried, blind and especially.

Conclusions: The area was very beautiful and incredibly peaceful during our visit. Nothing intelligent came through the Ovilus V during the EVP session, only random words. It was interesting for the multiple battery failures that occurred while we were there.

We did find some old bottles, some of which we are still trying to determine what was in them and how old they were. One screw top brown bottle had a letter “H” inside of an anchor which later research determined came from the Anchor Hocking Glass Corporation which was founded in 1937.

Other bottles including one that had a slogan, “Loving Refreshing”, could not as yet be determined whose slogan that was. Markus did mention that the evergreen trees were not indigenous to the area but were landscaping when the buildings were here. We did find evidence of that near some of the evergreen trees.