Welcome to the first installment of The HOUSE OF DOOM!!!'s Vintage
Haunts From Cincinnati's Past section. We're starting off with the group
that started it all (the WSAI-Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees events) along
with the best haunt ever put on in the area, the Hamilton-Fairfield
Jaycess House On The Hill. Later installments will bring you more recent
landmark events like the Night Of Fright (including rare shots of the
interior in operation) and Nightmare On Glenway. You'll also see lesser
known classic haunts like the Horseshoe Valley Haunted Trail, The
Covington Community Resources House, The Comboni Mission Center Haunted
Manor, The Middletown Haunted Hotel At City Center, The Asylum Of
Terror, The Fairfield TD Club Haunted Woods, the Campbell County
Jaycees, and more. Only The HOUSE OF DOOM!!! has the knowledge,
experience, resources, and extra time in between Japanese lessons when
there's nothing else to do to bring you a retrospective like this!
THE WSAI SYCAMORE-DEER PARK JAYCEES HAUNTED HOUSES
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Dark rides and walk through 'spook houses' have long been an
accepted part of the amusement park and carnival scene. However, in 1970
the seasonal haunted house was something that was an unknown quantity.
That year the nation's first "Halloween Haunted House" was put on at 108
St. Clair in Clifton (site shown above) by the Sycamore-Deer Park
Jaycees/Cincinnati Recreation Commission and co-sponsored by then top
rated radio station 1360 WSAI. This event was only open for one week
(October 24-31) and on weekends ran from 1-5 PM as well as its daily
7-Midnight time. The first of 13 houses put on by the group set a high
standard of excellence and in many ways was superior to most of today's
haunted events.
In particular, the first seven events were masterpieces. Each was
held in a different location, and was kept secret until the morning of
opening day. WSAI tirelessly promoted the event, doing remotes almost
every night of operation and going so far as to give 'virtual tours' of
the houses on-air, giving detailed descriptions of each room one by one
in between songs. The Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees put on events that were
deserving of all the attention. Most of these early houses were located
in the Clifton area (1970, 73, 75, 76) with the 71 in Reading, the 72
in Price Hill, and the 74 by Xaiver University. The Clifton house in
1975 looked quite a bit like the Psycho mansion (and now houses
apartments). The 1972 house on Grand Avenue in Price Hill was huge, with
well over 30 rooms. While the 1971 house in Reading was unremarkable,
it had a great location-located directly across from a huge, sprawling
cemetery. The 1976 house was a creepy old huge building that has also
since been renovated. Probably the best of the lot was the 1974 house on
Victory Parkway by Xavier University (which is itself pretty
scary-turning out career alcoholics by the score). It was held in the
old cancer research center and was located in the middle of some woods
which were stocked with monsters and billed as the 'petrified forest'.
It had some excellent effects, including an early attempt at using
holograms, a huge spider, an animated dragon, and an Exorcist room
complete with wildly bouncing bed.
This was well before the day of mass produced custom Halloween
props, so the Jaycees built sets that were realistic down to the
smallest detail. The first room in the first house set the tone for
everything to follow-Dr. Frankenstein's lab. With the sparking
electrical equipment, operating table, bubbling test tubes and flasks,
the Monster and 'wax figure' Dr, Frankenstein, it was even more detailed
than a Universal Monsters horror set. When they needed a 'human butcher
shop', they moved in glass fronted meat display cases. A laundry room
full of mutilated corpses had a multitude of industrial strength
machines with corpses spilling out the front. Costumes, masks, lighting,
sound, crowd control-everything was top notch. While the event
generally concentrated on the classic monsters such as Dracula,
Frankenstein, Wolf Man, The Mummy, etc, they usually had a few gore
rooms thrown in-a pack of zombies around a bone littered rock, a Helter
Skelter room, a housewife with a severed head, a blood soaked bathroom,
and more were on display at various times.
The event began a downward slide in 1977 when it moved into a mall
(even one as deserted as Swifton Center). The amount of rooms was
dramatically curtailed (going from well over 30 to 13) and the event was
put together with rooms abutting on rooms with no passages in between.
Things were worse in 1978 when WSAI changed its format to country-it did
very little promotion of the event and was to be the last year the
radio station sponsored the event. The event this year was held in Union
Terminal. In 1979 it probably reached its lowest point when it moved
into a small house on a former used car lot-there were only about 6
rooms. 1980 saw it move into Cincinnati Gardens. 1981 and 1982 were both
held in Swifton Center (in a different location than 1977). These
houses were much improved on the inside, featuring excellent set design
(including an early vortex-like spinning tunnel) and makeup/costuming.
The radio station sponsor was Yes! 95 with former WSAI disc jockey Jim
Scott heavily promoting the event. The future looked bright again for
the event, but 1982 was to be its last year. One can only presume that
after doing 13 years of the event the creators were burnt out.
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Newspaper Ad For The Nation's First Seasonal Haunted House-The WSAI-Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees Haunted House
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Featuring artwork ripped off from the Disney "Chilling, Thrilling Sounds
Of The Haunted House" LP. Check out that admission price-$1.
The 1972 WSAI Haunted House
 It was the dark color seen on the top floor while in operation, and many of the rooms still sported their decorated paint jobs years later. | The 1975 WSAI Haunted House
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The 1976 WSAI Haunted House
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THE HAMILTON-FAIRFIELD JAYCEES HOUSE ON THE HILL 1978-1982
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The Hamilton-Fairfield Jaycees jumped into the haunt fray in 1971. Their
haunt that ran every year at the old naval reserve center was a major
attraction and was so well received that they ran a two room preview of
the event at the yearly Butler County Fair and had a Haunt Parade that
saw their 'monsters' march from downtown Hamilton to the event on
opening night. However, bigger things were in store in the form of the
old building that looked down on the naval center from its perch on the
densely wooded hill above...
The Butler County Home had been built in 1884 by Gibbs & Co of
Cleveland and was used for the indigent elderly and other wards of the
state. As you can see from the photos, the building was massive (a
center tower and two wings, comprising 98 rooms-and some of those rooms
were bigger than houses!). Its Victorian styling also made it an
imposing edifice-it was such a landmark that several postcards featuring
the building were issued in the early 1900's. Many reports of abuse to
the inmates and residents were reported in newspapers of the 1930's and
1950's. It began to be shut down in the 1950's and as inspectors closed
down floor after floor (due to structural concerns) a new County Home
was built. This was opened and the old home sat vacant for some time
before the Jaycees moved their annual haunt into it in 1978.
The Haunt that ran there from 1978 to 1982 (billed as the
Hamilton-Fairfield Jaycees House On The Hill and sponsored by radio
stations WMOH & WSKS) was, simply put, the most impressive haunted
event I have ever run across. The setting, the extremely long tour
times, the multitudes of monsters, and very creative rooms added up to
something the likes of which might never be seen again.
In the first couple of years of the event, you would park in the school
lot at the base of the hill. A bus would then shuttle you up the steep,
winding wooded road to the event. In later years, parking was provided
by the church across the street and the hauntgoer would be immediately
confronted by the size and macabre glory of the home. If there was ever a
building that looked haunted, this was it. I've been to some other
rather menacing looking buildings (the Waverly Sanitarium, the Mansfield
Reformatory, the House Of Nightmares) but none of them even come close
to the Butler County Home.
Outside, the Jaycees ran line entertainment that included such things as
speakers in the Port-O-Lets and having DJ's buried alive in the front
yard. There was also a continuously looping tape of sound fx running
outside (the best I've ever heard)-somehow, the Jaycees even managed to
get Vincent Price to provide the voice over for it (he mentions the
event and HF Jaycees by name). Inside, more of the home was opened up
every year and by 1981 the event had been split up into two haunts
inside. It covered the entire basement along with the first and second
floors-probably about 70 rooms in total. The sheer size of some of the
rooms allowed the Jaycees to put up sprawling graveyards, mazes, caves,
and forests. This was the time when mass produced props were unknown, so
all of the rooms had a unique and fresh feel. The event never lacked
for volunteers-there could be 50 monsters or more running around inside.
Some of the better known repeating rooms were the Creature Cages,
Amityville Red Room, Checkered Monster (an early version of today's dot
room), Frankenstein's Lab, the Vampire Crypt, Werewolf Cemetery, Hell,
and the Hospital Wards Of Death. Much was made of the house's past
history as an infirmary and there were plenty of rooms drenched in blood
and body parts with a medical setting. There were still cells in the
basement complete with barred windows and doors used in part of the
haunt. A typical tour ran about 40 minutes. There were even extras
provided by the house-bats were nesting in the attic, and occasionally
one would find its way downstairs-and some awfully realistic rats were
spotted as well! The house itself, with its winding corridors and in a
run down state, provided a unique and creepy atmosphere.
For 5 years it was the top attraction around-however, time marches
on. In July of 1982 the structure was given a demolition order for late
1982 by the Butler County Commissioners. Many preservationists, led by
the Commttee To Save The Old Butler County Home, attempted to have it
declared a historical landmark in the Court Of Common Pleas and prevent
this. The battle in court went back and forth, culminating in December
with the awarding of a demolition contract to Steve Rauch Inc of
Centreville (the real villains of our piece). Within half an hour, Rauch
had a clamshell and front end loader chugging up the road to the house.
They were stopped three hours later when David Garrison, Attorney for
the Committee, received a restraining order from Richard N. Koehler of
the 12th District Court Of Appeals in Middletown. Those 3 hours saw a
corner off the southeast wing demolished, the stone steps in front
ripped out, and a large hole appear in the side of the other wing.
For a while, it looked as if the preservationists would win.
However, around 4 AM on February 17, 1983, a mysterious fire broke out
in the evening and despite the best efforts of firefighters, the central
tower and the south wing were heavily damaged. While it was speculated
that the demolition company was 'trying to hurry the legal process
along', nothing was ever proven. Fire Chief William Hieb declared the
damaged sections as unsafe and ordered them razed, leaving only the
north wing. With the majority of the house gone, the preservationists
gave up and allowed the destruction of the north wing.
The Hamilton-Fairfield Jaycees lost almost all of their haunt gear
in the fire. They returned after a year's hiatus to do a 'Rent A
Monster' program and later had a very successful run of seasonal haunts
at Fantasy Farm (with an actual Dark Ride, a cave, and a regular haunt).
They had a much less successful haunted Festival at Americana for a few
years, and hit rock bottom with their Haunted Theater at the Dixie
Drive In. They haven't been active in the haunting scene for a few years
now, but they remain one of the legendary haunters in the Tri-State
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1907 Postcard Of The 'House On The Hill'
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The Rear Courtyard
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 The Forbidden Top Floor Popular nesting spot for bats! | 1981 & 1982 Newspaper Ads For The House On The Hill
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Enquirer Photo Of Firefighters Combatting The Blaze
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Enquirer Photo Of The North Wing After The Blaze
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