In search of the GingerBread

One day while kicking around a soccer ball my friend told me the story about this gingerbread castle located literally 10-15 mins away from my house. I went home that night and told my mom all about it and she informed me that when I was a little kid it use to be an amusement park of sorts and we use to go there almost every weekend. That just made me so much more determined. We put the address into our GPS and headed out onto the adventure!





This paradise for little children was created back in the early 1900's and even when the man who originally planned for it to be built sold the mill next door he refused to sell this place. When children are young parents read them stories of fairy tales and girl's dream to become princesses. This really made you feel like you were in one of those stories, as soon as you walked up to the gate there was a giant story book, where most people would take their picture. Sitting on the wall right outside the is no other then humpty dumpty who had to be put back together. Now over 70 years later when I went searching for this wonderland humpty dumpty sat there still sitting on his wall.

Visitors to the park could have the option of being led on a tour by Hansel and Gretel. It was truly a place where all the fairy tales came true, kid's could even walk by statues of beloved characters such as Cinderella and snow white.

However when the place started to be to much to keep up they closed down for business. Then the park became a seasonal place used for haunted hay rides till a fire made it close down for good. My old high school cross country coach told me at one of our practices that they also tried making it into a club, I have yet to find that story anywhere else but I guess I will keep searching!

Thomas Alva Edison famous for inventing the light bulb

One of the first places I will write about was one of our first adventures of the summer. We came across this set of mines on a run in local mountains, after some research we found out we came across the old Edison Mines. In the late 1800's Thomas Alva Edison had opened these set of mines and many others, the mines were used to get cheap iron out they could use for furnaces used inside housing. The workers of the Edison mines actually had it pretty good back in the day, it was one of the first places to give electricity to the workers home and it was how the area first had started to become populated. Back in the day when the mine was still operational there also stood a mill and a processing plant not to far away. The mines are located in the Sparta Mountain Wildlife area, once you find the opening there is a tribute to Thomas Edison, as soon as you walk onto the trail you will come upon your first shaft. Please be careful there are fences up around the mines don't fool around it will cause serious harm and some of the holes you will not be able to get out.

Many of the caves or shafts that we had found had been flooded over, slowly over time collecting water. Most were not accessible to people.

There is a fence around the deep holes for people's protecting, I advise if you want a closer look to make sure you are not on the lip of the drop it is loose gravel. We think this deep hole was used as one of the old elevator shafts, we aren't completely positive however.

This mine that was low to the ground was accesible to crawl in although there are pictures of us inside of it I would not reccomend it. It is very narrow and over 100 years old and could fall at anytime. The cave came to an end about 100 feet into the end.

Hello my name is Kevin Gossett, I am just a normal person living in a small town in northern NJ. Instead of spending my final summer before college goofing off or visiting the shore I decided to adventure around the woods and back roads rarely taken around my house. All the spots that I have visited I have either heard of due to local folk lore or stories from friends, I spent the time researching as much as i can. Needless to say I am not a very strong writer, actually English is my worst subject, however I would like to share my experiences with anyone who is willing to read. Mainly my friend Bobby and I are the two wandering around the woods looking for new spots but there will be others tagging along. We like to wander around to anything spooky, abandoned, or weird. A lot of this stuff you may find if you look into weirdnj. I hope you enjoy and please be careful and courteous when visiting places, don't ruin it for the others!