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LEBANON HILLS REGIONAL PARK

860 Cliff Road, Eagan, Minnesota 55123

directions

Take I-35E South from downtown St. Paul for about 10 miles to exit 97A, Pilot Knob Road. Follow Pilot Knob Road for a little more than 3 miles to Cliff Road. Turn left onto Cliff Road and follow it for about 2 miles. The park visitor center will be on your right. The ghosts here are at the many lakes and trails that are interspersed throughout the park.

history

Dakota County was home to a tribe of Dakota Native Americans during the late 1700s when French explorers were first setting foot in the area. By 1819, European settlers had created a fort in the area, and relations between the settlers and the Native Americans were getting tense. By 1851, the European presence in the area was so overwhelming that the Dakota were forced to sell off their land or face military action from the stronger European force. In 1851, all of the sacred land in what is today Dakota County was abandoned by the native people and taken over by European settlers.

While Lebanon Hills Park itself is relatively new, the beautiful landscape and lakes have been around and have been explored and visited by people as long as the people have been around. There are stories from the older days, decades ago, about people, especially children, who have gone to visit the area and then simply never returned.

ghost story

It is hard to explain exactly what reportedly goes on in Lebanon Hills Park after dark. The best way to explain it is to start with perhaps the strangest of paranormal reports. Several lakes are situated in and around Lebanon Hills Regional Park. At night, from time to time, people witness a bright swirling glow that comes from the middle of a lake. Some describe it as a kind of portal. Others describe it as a large glowing platform in the middle of the lake. Some have seen a woman standing in the middle of this strange glow, beckoning to onlookers to join her in the center of the lake. The ones who tell these stories never go out to the middle of the lake. Perhaps there are others who do.

The trails and woods throughout the area are haunted. People sometimes hear a female voice coming from the woods. Sometimes, the woman’s voice sounds frightened and panicked. Sometimes, those who hear her can make out the words “Help me.” Sometimes these words are followed by screaming. The helpless witnesses search for the woman but never find any sign of her no matter how long they look.

Perhaps the most often encountered ghosts in the park are the sounds of laughter coming from small children. People walking the trails alone in remote sections of the park hear children laughing from the forest. Often they search for the children but find no sign of them anywhere.

visiting

The park itself is open throughout the night and allows camping along with many other activities. The portals and ghostly sounds seem to occur all over the park. There is not a specific lake where the portal is seen, and there is not a specific trail where the woman and children are heard. The only thing that seems to be uniform with the descriptions, besides the ghosts themselves, is that the people who experience them seem to be alone or with small groups of people. There are places within the park where you can be quite isolated from anyone else—these are areas where the ghosts come out to play.