So Many Scares! - Morgantown magazine

If you start now, you can visit all of these spooky spots by Halloween.

Whether you go for family-friendly or for not-for-the-faint-of-heart, Morgantown fans of the macabre at all levels can fill their October calendars with eerie escapes that are just a short drive away.

Poplar Island Pumpkins

Fairmont, 30 minutes

Family-style Halloween-season fun Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in October: pumpkin picking, hayrides, corn maze, cryptid trail, vendors, baked treats, craft goods, and more. The cryptid trail and corn maze light up after dark.

Fright Farm

Smithfield, PA, 30 minutes

For over three decades, family-run Rich Farms has been transforming its charming country property into the ghoulish Fright Farm with detailed scenes, talented actors, and state-of-the-art scares. This year’s theme: Entombed. Start your 2-hour adventure at the Fest-Evil Midway for haunting entertainment and crackling bonfires. Board a moonlit Hayride of No Return to face the things that go bump in the night. Dare to explore seven more attractions, including the Hallow Grounds Victorian cemetery and the haunted Hotel Hawthorne. Open Thursdays through Sundays through October.

Haunted Hills Estate Scream Park

Uniontown, PA, 45m

Screams aren’t unusual at theme parks, but the ones heard at the Haunted Hills Estate Scream Park are of an entirely different variety. Chilling creatures roam three attractions: The House, Twisted Nightmare, and The Trail. Then hit the Midway for more spooky fun. Weekends through November 8.

Nemacolin Castle

Brownsville, PA, 45 minutes

As the third-oldest castle in the United States, the 1789 Nemacolin Castle is plenty haunted. Take the hour-long candlelight ghost walk Friday and Saturday evenings through October. A separate Brownsville Northside Ghost Walk introduces you to the oldest part of this old Monongahela River town. Advance ticket purchase for both the ghost tour and the ghost walk is recommended.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

Weston, 1 hour

This sprawling 1864 institutional complex will scare you out of your mind. It’s naturally creepy, and it has a medieval-style mental health care history to match. Hundreds have died within its walls. The daytime historic and paranormal tours can be unnerving enough—book an overnight ghost hunt for a truly chilling experience. Or start designing your costume now for the annual Asylum Ball, October 18, held in the oldest parts of the building, and plan to check out the new haunted house attraction, Forsaken, Thursdays through Sundays through November 1.

Hundred Acres Manor

Bethel Park, PA, 1hr 30m

Trek through over a mile of terrifying sights spanning five haunted houses at Hundred Acres Manor. Evade Jack the Ripper on the streets of plague-infected London, dodge the demented inmates—and doctors—at an asylum, and break a voodoo curse to escape Mardi Gras New Orleans. When you’ve survived all that and more, you can toast to your life with a beer at the Scream Bar. Open Thursdays through Sundays and the entire week of Halloween.

West Virginia Penitentiary

Moundsville, 1hr 45m

The 1866 West Virginia Penitentiary has a hair-raising history of prisoner executions. Get locked inside a cell—and inside your own fears—during the Dungeon of Horrors haunted tour. Or take an eerie flashlight North Walk tour of the oldest part of the penitentiary, including the psych ward and infirmary. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays until November 1.

If you survive all of that, treat yourself to the Frank N Stein Halloween beer festival in Fairmont on Saturday, November 1, with, you guessed it, hot dogs and beer.