Local Legends: Stull KS

 

The gateway to Hell. A little place so foul that the pope himself refuses to fly over it. Such is the reputation of the infamous Stull, KS. The legends surrounding this tiny, unincorporated town are many but the basic premise goes that a church built in the cemetery was either constructed over or beside one of the seven entrances to Hell, and that anyone who ventured past the threshold of this entrance was never heard from again. Another popular story would have it that Satan himself visits the cemetery every Halloween (or Spring Equinox, in some versions) to visit the grave of his witch wife. 

But that’s not all. Back when the church (which was razed in 2002) was still standing, rumors persisted that no rain would fall inside the crumbling remains (despite a collapsed roof), and furthermore that any glass bottles thrown against the walls of the church would not break. Allegedly there was also an old pine (which had grown through and split a gravestone) that was the site of witch hangings, and that all of this trouble can be traced back to the time when a stable hand stabbed the town's mayor to death (in a barn that eventually became the location of the church). 

And for good measure there are whisperings of Satanic and other dubious occult practices transpiring in the cemetery.

But is any of it true?

For being the powerhouse legend that it is, the true history of Stull is actually quite unremarkable. Settled in 1856 by a handful of families and named for the town’s first and only postmaster (Sylvester Stull), the only glitch in its otherwise mundane history is two slightly peculiar deaths. In one, a boy was burned to death by his father in an accident, and in the other a man went missing only to turn up later hanging from a tree. There is, however, no known incident involving a stable boy and the mayor. 

So how did these tales of Satanic intrigue spring forth? One source claims that back in the 1950s a professor at the nearby University of Kansas started rumors of a hellish gateway in Stull as a social experiment, but his story never really gained much traction until it was picked up by the student newspaper sometime in the 1970s. I can't find any more information about this alleged social experiment, but the student paper (The University Daily Kansan) does seem to be the generally agreed upon source of the legend via an article from the 1970s. After the Daily Kansan article Stull suddenly became an attraction, and kids would make a Friday night of going out to the cemetery to try and encounter the otherworldly, which in turn led to a lot of vandalism, which eventually led to the incredibly tight security the cemetery experiences today. And it is tight. If you go there you are pretty much guaranteed a run in with law enforcement (and I speak from experience). It's understandable though. After all, many of Stull's residents have relatives buried in that cemetery and they're tired of people constantly lumbering through, messing the place up and disrespecting the dead.

I have been to Stull on three occasions. First time around the cemetery was locked so all we could do was stand outside the fence but on my second visit I was surprised to see the gates open and my friends and I were actually able to drive in. However, we didn't get to see much as a cop drove up almost as soon as we made it in. Lucky for us we had decided against getting out of the car and were thus able to simply leave without having to actually deal with the police, but still...like I said, the place is very secure. Third time, which was in 2021, I was trying to get a picture of the cemetery for Instagram but there were absolutely no lights on in the cemetery, making it pointless to try even try and photograph the place. As for the otherworldly, none of us encountered anything even the slightest bit paranormal on any of these trips. It didn't even have the air of a place that might be haunted. The cemetery seems to be just that, a cemetery. Not a portal to hell, not Mephistopheles' old stomping grounds. Nothing. Just a small graveyard in a small town.

But if you’re still curious, it's located 10 miles west of Lawrence and 13 miles east of Topeka. We took Highway 40, which turns into N 1600 Rd/Stull Rd. Take that until you get to E 250 Rd and make a left. Stull should be around there somewhere (directions only valid if coming from the KC metropolitan area).  Oh, and while rumors of the Pope refusing to fly over the area or The Cure canceling a show in nearby Lawrence KS because of its proximity to Stull are both false, it is true that Ariana Grande claimed in an interview with "Complex Magazine" that she was attacked by demons after attempting to visit the cemetery.

Photo of Stull taken before security ran us off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stull,_Kansas

Unfortunately my other source for this article no longer exists, but here are some other interesting sources for those invested in the legend:

https://www.theculturecrush.com/stull
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2488962/Ariana-Grande-encounters-demons-visit-infamous-cemetery.html (Ariana Grande's experience with Stull)