The Witch's Castle (Stone House)
Portland, Oregon, United States
A ruined 1890s stone rest house in Forest Park, reborn by decades of teen ritual and local legend as the Witchs Castle, one of Portlands essential legend-trip destinations.
The stone ruin in upper Forest Park began as a rest house and restroom built by the Works Progress era on Balch Creek, and the site's darker layer is real: the 1948 murder case of two teenagers, and the killing that history recorded nearby. From the ruin's abandonment grew Portland's persistent teen legend-trip tradition: a dare circuit of night visits, ghost stories, and the name Witch's Castle, so established that the city's own coverage, an Atlas Obscura entry, and an Axios Portland feature all document the practice as a standing part of the park's life.
The ruin is the city's most famous haunted-woods site, and it lives inside a genuinely great urban forest: the walk up Balch Creek's old-growth slot canyon is the approach, which keeps the ritual honest and the forest central.
Visiting
Upper Macleay Trail from the NW 26th Ave trailhead, Portland; open park, daylight recommended. See Portland parks. Leave no marks; the ruin's walls carry decades of graffiti scars already.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWitch's_Castle_in_Forest_Park.jpg), CC0.
Associated traditions & practices
Visitor stories