South Park Spooks

Corvette Tunnel from Bridges of Allegheny County
South Park in Allegheny County covers 2,013 acres, spreading across the South Hills municipalities of Bethel Park and South Park. It has a host of activities and its trails, pool, rink, and golf course draw visitors by the carload.

It's also a popular place to cruise - H&H spent half his teenaged life loafing there - and when the sun goes down, the spirits come out. There are three particularly enduring eerie tales that are woven into the Park's lore.

One involves the old Sulli-Nesta ("Sully's") pool. It operated until 1977 as a segregated black swimming area, when it was finally filled in after the main Corrigan Drive pool became integrated. At least two people drowned there and the barn hops outside the pool often ended with post-dance brawls. Now it's best noted as the site for the Hundred Acres Manor Haunted House during the Halloween season.

Staffers and visitors there are treated to several spirits. Among several sightings, there are two noted reports.

One employee saw a figure running across the room and gave it chase. When he caught up to him, he realized that it was sunk up to its' ankles in the floor, as if it was running in shallow water. Then the figure disappeared.

The most renown spook is an elderly gent who worked in the old pool's pumphouse. He's been spotted by guests as they came out of the haunted maze.

In the old days, that spot was the edge of the pool where he used to sit during his lunch break. Woman are particularly uneasy around him. They feel him watching their every move and sometimes the sensations are so intense they won't work the area alone.

The sightings are mostly in the summer, maybe because that's when the pool was open, or maybe because the commercial haunts mask the activity of the real ghosts. There are also sounds of doors opening and closing, unexplainable animal-like noises, and voices heard in conversation.

Corvette Tunnel on Piney Fork Road is another spooked out place. Depending who you ask, it's either just under or sharing the infamous Green Man's Tunnel. This spot is haunted by the spirit of a girl that shuffled off this mortal coil when she slammed her 'Vette into another car while drag racing.

If you drive through at the stroke of midnight, it's said that you can hear her screams, screeching tires, racing motors, and see the headlights of the Corvette.

There's also a small creek running alongside the tunnel. Its tale is that a man killed his wife and disposed of her body by chopping it up and tossing it in that creek. If you're walking through the tunnel, the story goes that her invisible spirit clutches at your legs, begging for help.

Finally, its most famed legend involves the Green Man's Tunnel. A hideously scarred green man is reputed to pop up and frighten the romance out of young couples; the tale is based loosely on the real life experiences of Ray Robinson. H&H has the full tale here; it deserved its own post.

The Green Man of South Park

Green Man's Tunnel - Image from Bridges of Allegheny County
This is one of the most enduring legends in Pittsburgh – and it's true! Sorta.

I was raised in the South Hills and my high school babe was from Library, just past South Park, so I can speak with some authority on the Green Man, one of my favorite bits of local lore. The story goes that a guy who was an electrician got struck by lightning while working in the area (ironic, no?) He was horribly disfigured, and ended up with a greenish glow from the jolt.

The Green Man roamed around South Park and laid claim to his own tunnel on Piney Fork Road, today used to store salt. His lair has a long history. It was built in 1924 as the Piney Fork Tunnel to serve coal mines along the PRR's Peters Creek Branch. Abandoned in 1962, the locals have given it the name its gone by for decades - Green Man Tunnel.


If you've even driven on Piney Fork Road, you know it's a dark, two lane drive running parallel to Piney Fork Creek. At night, it's a perfect lovers lane – or lair for an ax murderer. It's easy to imagine anything at all happening there once the sun's set. The Green Man's also been sighted in Brookline, Hays River Road, McKees Rocks, North Hills, McKeesport, even Washington County and Youngstown, anywhere it's dark, isolated, and teen imaginations can run free & wild.

But enough of the Green Man myth – the real Green Man was Ray “Charlie No Face” Robinson, from Big Beaver in Beaver County. When he was 9, he was gruesomely disfigured when he tangled with a high voltage line. He was left half blind and his nose was burned off. He had to wear a prosthetic one and coke-bottle glasses for the rest of his life.

But Ray remained pretty chipper, considering everything. One of his favorite pastimes was to walk along the local highway at night so no one would notice his injuries. Soon the local teens spotted him and would stop to chat with him. Ray was a friendly soul, even posing for pictures. They brought him beer and cigarettes – once or twice his worried family found him sleeping in a roadside field. His legend grew by leaps and bounds across the region.

By the time he died at the age of 74 in 1985, the Green Man's tale had spread across the face of Western Pennsylvania. They're even in the process of making a movie about him.