THIS IS AN ONGOING HAUNTED
NEW ORLEANS PARANORMAL CRYPTO-ZOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION.
IF YOU HAVE ANY GRUNCH
STORIES OR GRUNCH PHOTOS, OR INFORMATION ON GRUNCH
ROAD PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!
by M. Mathers photos
by Robert Clarkson
The Legend of
New Orleans Grunch Road Revealed
Some people claim it
was in Chalmette, Louisiana, some other people
claim it was in Gentilly, but the REAL Grunch
Road was located in a remote part of Eastern
New Orleans near the community of Little Woods.
In those days, when
New Orleans was still developing it's Eastern
subdivisions, most people only encountered Grunch
Road by accident. A dead end of scant shells
and sand, sheltered by overgrown woods and water
oaks it led off into the ferny darkness off
the major two-lane highway of Haynes Boulevard.
Grunch
Road was located in a Eastern New Orleans
suburb. Photographer Robert Clarkson
and friend went there to get some photos
for this article. You will find here
below. What they caught on film. And
their Story. www.hauntedneworleanstours.com
presents this as an excluxse story.
We only present to you what was presented
to us in Photos and his statements reguarding
such. www.hauntedneworleanstours.com
does not confirm or deny the authenticity
of this story or photos.
Grass and weeds now grow where nobody
dares to go. Grunch Road still exisit
in tales told at haunted slumber parties.
But is it just another New Orleans
ghost story?
|
Most times people driving
down Haynes Boulevard, families on their way
to weekends in fishing camps or fun-filled days
at Lincoln Beach Amusement Park, never even
noticed where Grunch Road broke away from the
main road. But it's location was well known
to high school students in search of a secluded
place to make out, or to middle schoolers out
on a Halloween dare, or, most notably, to the
lonely victim of a random flat tire, forced
to walk the pitch blackness in search of an
open service station.
I
am not sure what they are. But we saw
them looking at us on Grunch Road. Are
they real Grunches? Some people use
to say they were weird lizard part goat
animals. Their story similar to El Chupacabras!
This is what we saw. Yes they were real
we saw two. they watched us and they
ran on two legs into the high brush!
|
People lived back there,
they said, and they were a strange lot. Dwarves
and albinos were forced to live back there in
ramshackle trailers. This made sense, unfortunately,
to New Orleans suburbanites, the vanguard of
the first "white flight" out of the
city. It made sense to group those "unfortunates"
together off the main road and out of sight.
But it didn't make sense
to anyone that dwarves and albinos would be
intermarrying back in those woods. That didn't
make sense at all and couldn't have been right
in the eyes of God.
They
would not let us get close to them.
The Grunches !?! They seemed almost
monkey like, yet almost reptilian. But
the face was definitely goat like and
human.
|
So the stories grew
and became local legend and the road became
a kind of side show attraction. High school
students would show their bravery to each other
by simply turning off the main road and shining
high beams down the brushy darkness of Grunch
Road. Sometimes, they'd drive a little further
and scare each other silly, and back out screaming
with laughter. Sometimes, though, the experiences
had more of a ring of truth than was comfortable.
One student and his
girlfriend, thinking the little wooded road
a good place to get cozy for a night out, pulled
into Grunch Road out of sight of the main highway
and turned off their headlights. With only the
glow of the radio providing light, the two teens
went quickly to work on their own particular
"night moves." It wasn't long, however,
before their passion was interrupted by terror.
It began placidly enough, just a feeling of
unease with the encompassing darkness and the
incessant chirping of the crickets and night
creatures. Soon it was the oppressive silence
and the bad 70's rock song. Then it was a shriek
and the teens sat bolt upright in the back seat
of their car.
One
Grunch croutched down in the tall weeds
and grass watching us then ie ran very
fast on two legs to get away from us.
Notice in the close up the depression
it makes in the tall weeds. That is
it's face to the left and shoulder to
the right. |
From outside all they
could hear was the rustling of brush and the
swaying of bushes in the pitch blackness around
them. Soon they were alarmed by the sounds of
grunting and snuffling. A guttural call, like
one animal calling to another, was all it took
to propel the teens over the front seat; they
started the car and it seemed just in time,
as out of the woods a white arm lurched for
the passenger side door. Screaming into reverse,
the car lunged out of the woods, and when they
finally reached the safety of the teenaged girl's
home she was in shock. All she could say was
"Red!" --- over and over. Red. The
color of albino eyes.
But it was when people
started disappearing down Grunch Road that everyone
finally took notice.
It started with a goat.
A goat was spotted wandering around the spot
where Grunch Road intersected with Haynes Boulevard.
A well meaning motorist would slow down, not
wanting to kill the animal; invariably the motorist
would get out of the car to see if there was
a way to secure the animal or to lead it off
the road. And invariably the goat would lead
them away from the highway and into the darkness
of Grunch Road.
A woman who lived near
the Lake Pontchartrain pumping station reported
her husband missing on a Monday night from a
weekend fishing trip in Little Woods. The New
Orleans Police were summoned to take all the
information they could and a squad car was dispatched
to patrol Haynes Boulevard in search of some
sign of the missing man.
This extreme
close up of the Grunch we saw. (from
Photo above) I do have more photos but
they are to blurry and non discript
these here are the best. Photos taken
with a cannon 35mm camera June 19, 2004 |
What they found was
his abandoned car, trailer and boat still attached,
driver's side door still open, at the entrance
to the infamous Grunch Road. There was no sign
of the man and no sign of a goat, but his haul
of trout and sheephead were rank in a cooler
in the boat.
He was the first to
disappear but not the last and finally police
gave in to the demands of local residents and
took a ride down Grunch Road. What they found
was never documented in any police report but
first hand reports from the officers themselves
confirmed at least the worst fears about who
was living back there: red eyes peered from
the trailer windows and dwarves huddled around
trash fires looked up warily. But beyond the
unusual occupants, nothing out of the ordinary
was found.
But this didn't keep
the legend from growing, and the sightings of
the goats along Haynes Boulevard continued well
into the 1980's when progress and expansion
tore the green woods down and drove out the
remnant society that had grown in secret at
the dead end of Grunch Road.
To this day, however,
local residents warn: If you see a stray goat
waiting on the side of the road in old Little
Woods, don't stop. Whatever you do. Don't stop.
These
photos on this page were taken by Robert Clarkson.
And are his commentary on them. These Grunch
Photos are his sole property Robert Clarkson
C 2004. This is his story in photos of what
he caught on film on his expidition to Grunch
Road.
