PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anisa Khalifa: Inside a North Carolina forest full of pine trees is something eerie, an empty, desolate circle. It's about 40 feet wide and nothing grows there. No trees, no bushes, nothing.
Cliff Bumgardner: It's just barren. There's grass and weeds and trees all around, but not in this one spot.
Anisa Khalifa: One thing, however, has sprouted from the strange spot of land, a local legend with a menacing main character.
Cliff Bumgardner: And the legend is that the devil himself comes up in the woods in Chatham County. He walks down a long path. He walks around in a circle, plotting evil against the world and all of his misdeeds, and then he goes down a separate path and disappears back into the woods, and that that is why nothing has ever grown there and creates the name the Devil's Tramping Ground
Anisa Khalifa: For centuries, the Devil's Tramping Ground has attracted curious campers, paranormal investigators.
And people just passing through North Carolina's Piedmont. But what's really going on here, if Scooby-Doo taught me anything, it's that there's an explanation behind every spooky mystery, isn't there?
Cliff Bumgardner: What's unique about the tramping ground is that there have been a lot of investigations. There have been a lot of scientists who've gone out there and tried to figure it out, and the results have largely been inconclusive.
Jan.
Anisa Khalifa: I'm Anisa Khalifa. This is the broadside where we tell stories from our home at the crossroads of the South this week, how a suspicious clearing became one of North Carolina's most enduring legends.
Cliff Bumgardner: The Devil's Tramping ground is I think one of the most infamous legends in North Carolina lore.
Anisa Khalifa: Cliff Baumgartner is a documentary filmmaker based in Raleigh, North Carolina. He recently made a short doc about the Devil's tramping ground for the PBS North Carolina Series. My Home and Sea. It is a topic that was right up Cliff's alley.
Cliff Bumgardner: I've always loved spooky stuff, scary stuff. My birthday is the day before Halloween, so it shows me and it's my favorite time of year, and so those kind of stories have always appealed to me
Anisa Khalifa: as a kid. Growing up in Raleigh, cliff heard through the grapevine about this mysterious sight, about an hour down the road and his morbid kid curiosity lit up.
Cliff Bumgardner: I think it captures your imagination because you're like, that's here. Like that's in North Carolina. That sounds like something that'd be in a movie or, but it's real and it's here and you can go and and find it.
Anisa Khalifa: But Cliff never ventured out there to check it out. That is until he was a teenager and had some wheels of his own.
Cliff Bumgardner: Yeah, I would've been probably 18 or 19 and my high school girlfriend and I were doing that thing you do as kids where you kind of go out with no plan. And we were talking about what to do next and I started kind of looking stuff up on my phone and I found, wait a minute, we're not terribly far from the Devil's Champion ground.
I've always heard of this place.
Anisa Khalifa: So Cliff and his girlfriend took off down some country roads in his small sedan in search of the devil, but the trip soon hit a speed bump.
Cliff Bumgardner: I am driving on this road. I look down, I'm running out of gas. Oh no. 'cause of course, I hadn't planned any of this and I was terrified.
We're not even at the tramping ground yet, and I am horrified if, if I met someone on the road, I didn't know what I would do because there's nowhere to go.
Anisa Khalifa: The paved highway quickly turned into a treacherous, narrow dirt lane. Cliff was getting more and more nervous with each mile. But in the nick of time, he saw a beacon of hope in the distance. A gas station.
Cliff Bumgardner: At the gas station. We asked for directions and they told us where to go, but. It was funny because even before we got the tramping ground, the fear was already there. We were already primed and after being on the dirt road and everything else, the actual tramping ground was the least scary part of our day because it was broad daylight and you see this barren patch and you kind of go, oh, okay, well we, we've seen it and work here, and we got back in the car and went home.
Anisa Khalifa: I love that. So, just to be clear, cliff, when you visited, you did not see the devil
Cliff Bumgardner: When I visited. I did not see the devil. No. I'm not one of the fortunate ones to have a strange experience. Well, that, that's a
Anisa Khalifa: relief actually
Cliff Bumgardner: for me too. Trust me.
Anisa Khalifa: So for Cliff, the site was as advertised, an empty circle in the woods. Nowadays with the help of things like GPS Cliff says, it's actually pretty easy to find.
Cliff Bumgardner: It's very surprising how close it is to the road. You, you don't think that you're there. You don't think you possibly can be there because you're expecting something grand or you're expecting to hike back in the woods and find this place and no, you can practically see it from the highway.
Anisa Khalifa: Over the years, the site's accessibility has helped it become a kind of roadside attraction for the local community. There are no neon signs or gift shops. The Baron Patch really speaks for itself, and the people who live nearby see it as something special.
Cliff Bumgardner: It's kind of a local point of pride. You have this legend that is in books and has been in movies, and it brings people down to this area that they probably otherwise wouldn't go unless they had a specific reason to.
The actual road that it's on is Duffels Tramping Ground Road. So it calls to people to come there and to check it out.
Anisa Khalifa: It's been making people scratch their heads and perhaps sending a shiver or two up their spines for centuries.
Cliff Bumgardner: We don't know exactly when the tramping ground was first documented.
There are some handwritten letters that dated as far back as the 17 hundreds with surveyors. Definitely as far back as the 18 hundreds it was mentioned in newspapers, and then by the 1960s and seventies it had kind of become the local legend that we know today.
Anisa Khalifa: These days, cliffs as its popularity is largely boosted by the family who owns the land.
Yes. The Devil's Tramping Ground has its very own property manager. A
Cliff Bumgardner: lot of people think that it's owned by the state or by the county, but it's not. It's, it's a private farm, uh, where they do actually welcome visitors to come check it out. Tamara Dowd Owens, who, who owns it, she and her family are hoping to, over the years be able to expand on that and they've created a bit of a brand around it and a bit of awareness around it.
Tamara Dowd Owens: Preservation to me is, is key to try to maintain it, you know, the best that we can. This
Anisa Khalifa: is Tamara Dowd Owens in Cliff's documentary.
Tamara Dowd Owens: You know, it's very important. It's a very special place and you know, we just don't want you to go out there and trash it.
Anisa Khalifa: Unfortunately, like any site haunted by rumors of the occult, the Devil's tramping ground has seen its fair share of mischief over the years.
Cliff Bumgardner: So it is very much a point of pride on one hand. On the other hand, it has invited a lot of attention from paranormal groups, from true believers.
Tamara Dowd Owens: Still some remnants of some of the blue spray plank, but there was 6, 6, 6 on this tree. And there
Cliff Bumgardner: was also, so whether people are pro or against whatever they think is out there, they've had those kinds of people show up and it's become, you know, at times, a bit of a chore for the family to, to deal with this being out there.
So there's good and bad, I think, with the tramping ground.
Anisa Khalifa: Is there any official marker or signage out there with like details about the legend?
Cliff Bumgardner: So a few years ago, the family applied for, they initially wanted to get a state historic marker for the site like you would see outside of a historical building or something.
And it didn't quite fit for that site, but they found out that there is a folktale association and they were able to get this really beautiful sign and get put on the list as a North Carolina legend. I think it's called the Legends and Lore Society.
Anisa Khalifa: Not to derail, but I just love the fact that we have a North Carolina Legends and Lore society.
Isn't that great? That's amazing. Isn't that great?
Cliff Bumgardner: Love that there's enough things that we can have an entire group dedicated to it. But um, unfortunately right now, the sign is still in Tamara's garage because they're so concerned that people would vandalize it. Anything that they've put out there, you can find the old pictures when there were signs out there.
They've all, they were all torn down. Stolen or vandalized. So it's really difficult for the family, unfortunately, to preserve it or get to do what they want with it right now because of the attention.
Anisa Khalifa: So I mean, there's a lot of theories. There's a lot of beliefs, but are there also like possible scientific explanations behind this?
Cliff Bumgardner: So throughout our research process, we talked to several different soil scientists who've done work there over the years. Um, several people that we spoke to said, yeah, all, all of our results were inconclusive.
And so the mystery is still alive, which I think is unique for that specific spot
Anisa Khalifa: coming up. We go deep with one of those soil scientists. And try to solve the mystery of what's happening under the surface
for Brad Thompson. Soil is so much more than just dirt under our feet.
Brad Thompson: Soil means everything.
Anisa Khalifa: Brad is an agronomist for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture. And if you have no idea what an agronomist is, you're not alone. I didn't know either.
Brad Thompson: Basically, I go around and I help growers determine what type of uh, issues they may be having and how to correct those issues.
Anisa Khalifa: So he's like a soil doctor or as Brad put it,
Brad Thompson: a plant detective. 'cause I feel like it's what I am. It's like
Anisa Khalifa: That's amazing. Trying to
Brad Thompson: figure out what's going on.
Anisa Khalifa: A few years ago, plant Detective Brad took on a new case, the mystery of the Devil's Tramping Ground. The region he manages for the Ag Department includes Chatham County, where the Devil's Tramping Ground is located, and a TV show reached out to him to see if he'd be up for doing some soil samples.
Brad Thompson: I just heard stories growing up about it. So when this TV show reached out, uh, to me to go check it out, this was gonna be my first time going out there and, and visiting the site. And when I got out there to be right, honest, it was a little disappointing. I, I rolled up and I was like, is this really it? I mean, it's just like a little bare spot out in the woods that honestly I've seen.
Walking around the woods as kids, you'll come across spots where it's maybe been struck by lightning at some spot and it's kind of the ground's kind of sterile there. And yeah, it was a little anti-climactic to say the least. I was like, eh, okay.
Anisa Khalifa: But after taking a closer look at the soil, Brad started to change his tune.
Brad Thompson: Once I got out into the site. It's, it is different. I will say that.
Anisa Khalifa: Did you go in the daytime or at night?
Brad Thompson: No, I went during the daytime because I've heard all the stories and I didn't know if I wanted to be a part of that or not. So I, I just went during the daytime hours.
Anisa Khalifa: Here's the big question, right?
What is really going on here? Like as the expert, what do you think is really happening? Okay,
Brad Thompson: so I wanna pop some bubbles probably. I took soil samples at different depths from inside the the tramping area. And then took samples from outside in the wooded area that surrounds the tramping area to see if there is a a difference as we go down in the soil profile.
Anisa Khalifa: One thing Brad found zinc, tons of it.
Brad Thompson: We can contribute that to people who have been burning tires for many, many years. They camp out, they burn tires to keep warm and the ash to slip.
Anisa Khalifa: Brad says there was also a little extra potassium in there, but overall the soil really wasn't that unique. Nothing that would prevent plant life from growing.
So what gives,
Brad Thompson: the thing that really stood out though was when you're trying to take soil samples in that tramping area, it is extremely difficult because that ground is as hard as concrete.
Anisa Khalifa: Oh,
Brad Thompson: compared to the surrounding area. So it is like something has trampled the ground, uh, in that spot. But as far as nutritional aspects of the soil, it's not really that much different than the surrounding area.
Anisa Khalifa: Okay. So maybe it's not what's in the soil that's the problem, but how it's been transformed.
Brad Thompson: It's so compacted that if anything does root. The roots cannot go that far. And then when it gets hot and dry, the roots dry out and the plants die. So if you can figure out what compacted the soil, you'll have solved the mystery.
Anisa Khalifa: What do you think it is? I know I'm asking a scientist to give me a, a, a theory without proof, but like if you'll bear with me,
Brad Thompson: if I had to give a theory and it's complete. Guess honestly of what it could possibly be. I would say some type of settlement was there at some point a long time ago, and it just, the soil just got so compacted because the soil there is a clay type soil, and the more that it's worked and packed, the harder it gets.
Anisa Khalifa: Do you think that will ever find out the answer
Brad Thompson: honestly? No, I don't think so. I think enough people have looked at the devil's tramping gown at Crown and tried to figure out what's going on there, and nobody really has a good answer. So I don't know if we'll ever determine what actually happened at that spot.
Anisa Khalifa: Even Brad, the plant detective couldn't crack the case, but he actually seems okay with that.
Brad Thompson: With the folklore behind it, it's a nice little, neat little spot just to kind of keep it the way it is and let people's, let people's imagination run away with it a little bit.
Anisa Khalifa: And Brad's in good company.
Documentarian. Cliff Bumgarner shares a similar sentiment.
Cliff Bumgardner: The tramping ground is one of those things that people love, a good mystery, and the fact that there has never been a definitive answer, and that even when there were attempts to find definitive answers, it's still been inconclusive, leaves the door open to your imagination.
It's like a painting. You get to finish yourself, right? Yeah. You, you get to decide what it is, and you get to decide what it means for you.
Anisa Khalifa: There's also a nice interactive side to it. If it's true, nothing grows there because the ground is too compacted. Then it's partly from all the tourists and paranormal enthusiasts who have tramped on it themselves over the years.
So if you ever find yourself in the Chatham County Woods and decide to drop by, in a way, you are helping carry on the story of the Devil's Tramping ground. With each step around the circle, you can take part in this centuries old slice of North Carolina lore.
Cliff Bumgardner: I think it kind of generates its own legend to a degree.
That's what interested me about doing the story was even if I don't believe in the supernatural side of it, the story is real. And the story has had an impact on the lives of the people who live there. On the people who visited. It had an impact on me, and that's real regardless of what the truth behind the mystery is.
And that's kind of why I think it's fun that there is still the mystery and that, you know, we probably won't ever definitively know exactly what's going on. And I think that in itself is pretty cool.
Anisa Khalifa: If you'd like to check out Cliff's documentary on the Devil's tramping ground for PBS North Carolina, we have a link to it in our show notes. This episode was produced by Charlie Shelton Ormond. The rest of our team includes editor Jared Walker and Executive producer Wilson Sayer. The Broadside is a production of WNC North Carolina Public Radio and is part of the NPR network.
If you have feedback or a story idea, you can email us at broadside at. W unc.org. If you enjoyed the show, leave us a rating, a review, or share it with a friend. I'm Anissa Khalifa. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll be back next week.