The frightful Dent Schoolhouse is one of Cincinnati’s most popular Halloween attractions, with people waiting hours in line for the chance to be scared out of their wits by costumed ghosts and ghouls.
The Dent Schoolhouse has also been named one of the scariest haunted houses in the nation by the likes of “Oprah Magazine,” USA TODAY and BuzzFeed.
Part of its draw is the eerie backstory of the old schoolhouse in the Dent section of Green Township.
The spooky red brick building at 5963 Harrison Ave. was once the Dent Public School. Local legend says it was closed after dozens of schoolchildren went missing from 1942 to 1955.
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Owners Bud Stross, his father, Chuck Stross, and friend Josh Wells have been running the Dent Schoolhouse haunt since 2006.
“We were young entrepreneurs looking to scare people, and it was serendipitous to find the Dent Schoolhouse,” said Bud Stross. “It’s said to be haunted by the janitor who killed some kids.”
According to lore, students complained about a foul odor emanating from the school basement. When Dent citizens stormed the school in 1955, they discovered the grisly remains of the missing children in the basement, and the janitor, Charlie McFree had skedaddled.
The old schoolhouse was then closed.
“How do people not know about this?” Stross said. “We started doing our own research, finding out the local legends. … We thought, we have to retell this horror story and allow people to relive it at the Dent Schoolhouse.”
But is it true? Any of it?
Stross told the Huffington Post in 2010 that he’d tried to research the school’s history, but the records were inconclusive.
“The Cincinnati Enquirer has no stories about it,” Stross told the website. “It’s really strange because we’re always looking for information about it.”
It’s true that The Enquirer archive has no stories about the missing schoolchildren or Charlie McFree. But it does reveal the history of the school.
Built in 1894, the schoolhouse was originally two rooms with an addition built in 1912, according to an Enquirer article from 1949.
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Also in 1949, the Dent Public School and the South Road School closed, and the students from both moved to the then-new Charles W. Springmyer Elementary School on Ebenezer Road, which still stands. The school is now part of the Oak Hills Local School District.
Enquirer stories show that Leo L. Hengehold bought the Dent School property at auction in 1951 and converted the building into a tool and machine shop called Suburban Machine Co. that was in business until at least the late 1980s.
Faded ghost letters still spell out “Suburban Machine Co.” across the Dent Schoolhouse.
The old school became a haunted house in 1997 for WEBN, then as a charity haunt run by the Boy Scouts.
Does it really matter if the legend is just a story? The Dent Schoolhouse is spine-tingling fun either way.
If you go
What: The Dent Schoolhouse
When: 7:30-10 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, 7:30 p.m.-midnight Friday-Saturday, 7:30-10 p.m., through Nov. 4.
Where: 5963 Harrison Ave., Dent.
Cost: $20-$30.
Information: 513-445-9767; frightsite.com.
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