The Swings Still Sway: The Legend of Lake Shawnee Amusement Park

ROCK, W.Va. — Drive the winding stretch of Matoaka Road out past Princeton on an October evening and you’ll pass a quiet lake tucked down in the Mercer County hills. Most nights it looks like any other little holler pond. But folks around here know better. This is Lake Shawnee, and the rusted old swing ride standing beside the water has been giving West Virginians goosebumps for generations.

So pull your chair a little closer to the fire. It’s Halloween, and this one’s a true Mountain State story — part documented history, part whispered legend.

A homestead with a hard history

Long before there were rides here, there was a farm. Mitchell Clay and his wife, Phoebe, are remembered as the first settlers of European descent to put down roots in what is now Mercer County, arriving in the mid-1770s. The frontier was a dangerous and contested place then, and the land the Clays claimed had been home to Native peoples for centuries before them.

In 1783, while Mitchell was away, tragedy struck the family. According to the long-told account, two of the Clay children, Bartley and Tabitha, were killed near the homestead during a raid by a Shawnee party, and a third child, Ezekiel, was carried off and later killed. Accounts differ on what came after — some say Mitchell Clay and his neighbors pursued the raiders, others that a settlement was reached so the boy could be brought home. What is not in doubt is the grief. A stone marker placed in 1937 by the Daughters of the American Revolution still stands on the property today, marking where the Clay children were laid to rest.

And the Clays weren’t the first chapter. Years later, digs on the grounds turned up signs of a much older Native American village, along with artifacts and human burials, many of them believed to be children. For a lot of folks, that’s where the legend begins: a place of deep, layered sorrow, sitting quietly under the hills.

Summers of swings and swimming

In 1926, a local businessman named Conley T. Snidow bought the land and built something joyful on it. Lake Shawnee Amusement Park became a summertime escape for southern West Virginia’s coal camp families. There was a spring-fed swimming pool, a dance hall, cabins for overnight stays, a little Ferris wheel and the chair swing ride that would one day become the park’s most famous — and most haunting — landmark.

For decades, it was the kind of place your mamaw and papaw might have talked about with a smile: hot dogs, cold sodas, a dip in the pool after a long week in the mines.

The tragedies behind the legend

But the park’s happy years were marked by heartbreak, too. As the story is remembered, a young girl riding the swings was struck and killed when a soda delivery truck backed into the ride’s path. A young boy was also lost, drowning in the park’s swimming pool. The exact details and dates vary depending on who’s telling it, but those losses weighed heavily on the community, and the park closed in the 1960s. A former employee, Gaylord White, later bought the property and briefly reopened it in the late 1980s before it shut down for good.

What folks say they’ve seen

Here’s where history gives way to folklore. Visitors and paranormal investigators have long shared stories about Lake Shawnee — and we’ll let you decide how much to believe.

The most famous tale is about the swings. Some say the rusted seats sway on their own on still, windless nights. Others claim to have glimpsed a little girl in a pink dress sitting on one of the chairs. There are stories of footsteps in empty fields, cold spots near the water, voices with no one around and an uneasy feeling that you are not alone. None of it can be proven, of course. But stand beside that swing ride at dusk, with the fog rolling off the lake, and you might understand why the legend has lasted.

Visiting Lake Shawnee

Lake Shawnee sits on private property in Rock, and it is not a place to wander onto uninvited. The owners have hosted seasonal photo and history tours as well as overnight experiences for paranormal enthusiasts, and visits are by appointment only. If you go, treat it with respect — the Clay family grave and the older burial ground are reminders that real people lived, loved and grieved on this land.

Ghost story or not, Lake Shawnee is a piece of West Virginia’s past worth remembering: a frontier homestead, a coal country playground, and a lonesome swing set that still keeps its secrets. Happy Halloween from all of us here in Almost Heaven.