Probing the Mystery Hole

For about a year, my wife worked for a publishing company in Roanoke. There were numerous problems with her job, including massive disorganization, an editor-in-chief who was a raging alcoholic, and various people who were perched on the narrow edge between insanity and homicidal insanity. However, there were also good points.

One of my favorite things about her job was the access it gave us to various weird tourist attractions. As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of home-town tourism, and the people at my wife's work had made a living out of finding strange and unique places to visit. One day, my wife burst through the door, yelling that she'd found a place we just had to visit.

"What is it?" I asked.

Her smile widened. "The Mystery Hole."

After I determined that she wasn't coming on to me (she can be a little oblique sometimes), we immediately made plans to go. On Saturday, we woke up at the crack of 10, gassed up the car, got some bottled water, and pointed ourselves toward West Virginia. It was a beautiful day, and we relaxed into the drive. It's about an hour and a half from our house to Anstead, West Virginia, where the Mystery Hole is, and much of the drive follows the path of the New River, which is, oddly enough, the second oldest river in the world.

As we passed into West Virginia, the mountains became sharper and more defined. It was absolutely gorgeous. However, as much as we enjoyed the twisty highway and beautiful scenery, we were happy when we finally got to the Hole. The roads in West Virginia are very steep, and my old Mustang wasn't really enjoying the extra exertion. Added to this, my wife suffers from about a billion different allergies and, as much as she enjoyed driving with the top down, she was starting to have a hard time breathing.


Even before we took our tour into the unknown, the Mystery Hole was worth the trip. It was encased in an old quonset hut with a broken VW bug poking out of the side. A row of American flags decorated the top of the hut, and the walls were painted with flashy slogans and various flourishes. It looked like both sides of the sixties--the hawks and the doves--had staked their claim to the building.

The audience was almost as exciting. It was a mix of kids and adults, locals and out-of-towners. John Deere caps mingled with dreadlocks; maybe it was the garish painting and the carnival air but, for a moment, everyone looked like a freak. We went inside to catch our breath, buy our tickets, and look through the gift shop.

The tickets were a couple of bucks each, but the store was out of T-shirts, which was a real bummer, as I really wanted a shirt that said "I've been inside the Mystery Hole!" or something similarly tasteless. It would have been really cool if I could have gotten it in prison orange. Anyway, we bought our tickets and waited with a growing crowd of kids in the parking lot for the next tour into the hole itself. This gave us time to peruse the signs warning people with heart problems from taking the tour. In spite of ourselves, we started to get a little excited.

Finally, it was our turn. As we walked down a long flight of stairs, the tourguide kept up his patter, a story about the "discovery" of the Mystery Hole that seemed to owe equal parts to oral storytellers and circus sideshow barkers. As we went deeper into the hole, we passed the little scares and visual jokes that are part and parcel of any good house of horrors. Yes, brothers and sisters, there was a blacklight room and wood carvings. There were mannequins and skeletons. And, yes, it looked like a 16-year old's room, circa 1978. Suffice to say, it was a total blast.


In time, we found ourselves in the Mystery Hole itself. And, as much as I'd like to be a smartass and tell you that it was all cheesy and ridiculous, there were times when I had to stare at a fixed point because my sense of balance started to get out of whack and my heart sped up. I saw water flow uphill and a chair, with a woman in it, balance on a wall. I saw plumb bobs stick out of the wall at me. And, although I knew how it was done, it still freaked me out a little.

When it was all over, we were pretty hungry, so we went to Tudor Biscuit World, a chain restaurant that sells fast-food Southern Cafe cooking. It had real ham biscuits and proper southern string beans, overcooked to perfection. My wife got the pot roast and I seem to remember pie for dessert. I decided, then and there, that fast-food Southern cooking was a brilliant idea, and that I was glad I didn't live within sixty miles of a Tudor Biscuit World, as I'm not sure my waistline could take the punishment.

So there you have it. If you ever find yourself in Anstead, West Virginia, be sure to drop into the Mystery Hole. Hopefully they'll have T-shirts in stock when you come by. Even if they don't, you still won't regret the trip.