Last week, you probably heard the reports that the home of our Pittsburgh Steelers, Acrisure Stadium, made the list of the most haunted football stadiums.
It also left us wondering…just what ghost might be the ones doing the haunting? There was no séance involved, just a Zoom with the keeper of Pittsburgh history.
Pittsburgh is a community that is rich in history, and there’s no better source for a good history-based ghost story than the Heinz History Center’s Andy Masiach, who took us back to July 1755 and Braddock’s defeat in the French and Indian War.
“It was a massacre, the British lost 500 killed on the battlefield, and many prisoners were taken back to the point,” he said.
But they weren’t taken to the point, which was then the French outpost at Fort Duquesne.
“They sent those prisoners over to a place called ‘Kill Buck Island,’ which is right about where Acrisure Stadium is today,” Masiach said.
If you’ve never heard of Kill Buck Island, there’s a good reason for that: at some point, the land between the island and the North Shore was filled in.
“The prisoners from Braddock’s defeat were tortured and burned at the stake on that island; their screams could be heard echoing off of Mount Washington,” he explained.
All of that happened on the ground where the Pittsburgh Steelers and Pitt Panthers play football today.
“That’s possibly a reason for some unusual activity, especially at night over on the North Shore,” Masiach said.
That’s not the only possible spirit connection. The other one has a football connection to the first professional football player, Pudge Heffelfinger.
“The Allegheny Athletic Association paid Pudge Heffelfinger $500, but he didn’t want to risk his amateur status, so they kept it on the down-low,” Masiach explained.
Pudge was an amazing mountain of a man, a Yale graduate, and he led the Allegheny Athletic Association to undefeated seasons from 1888 to 1891.
“To this day, the Pro Football Hall of Fame has not deemed it appropriate to name Pudge Heffelfinger to the Hall of Fame,” he said. “It’s possible that Pudge could still be walking the corridors at Acrisure Stadium.”
So there you have it: tortured prisoners and Pudge Heffelfinger.
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