Each October, we like to revisit one of Montgomery County’s most enduring ghost stories… the haunted reputation of Game Preserve Road in Gaithersburg.
Over the years, we’ve shared legends tied to this winding, wooded stretch near Seneca Creek State Park, and each year new tidbits emerge from locals who’ve driven the road at night. Whether it’s folklore, imagination, or something otherworldly, Game Preserve Road continues to rank among MoCo’s eeriest places.
The stories go back well over a century. In fact, one of the earliest recorded accounts appeared in The Montgomery County Sentinel, via Montgomery Ghosts, on March 17, 1876, describing strange nightly events at the railroad bridge over Big Seneca Creek, just off Game Preserve Road:
“The people in the neighborhood of Clopper’s Mill in this county have been very much excited for several weeks past by a mysterious occurrence which transpires nightly about 9½ o’clock upon the railroad bridge over Big Seneca Creek. It is reported by those who have witnessed the strange scene that about the hour named a lantern which is upon a post planted at the bridge is suddenly darkened, the light being entirely shut off and a flame like a flash of lightening shoots straight up into the air while another of a similar character flashes directly across the bridge.
We have not witnessed it as we know not whether it ‘be a spirit of health or goblin damned’ and do not care to trust yourself in the presence of such ‘questionable shapes’ but you who are not afraid of ghosts would doubtless be repaid for a visit to it. We hope that a solution of this affair will soon be discovered and a cause of terror be removed from the superstitions of that vicinity.”
Local historian, the late Jack Toomey, later explained the setting described by the Sentinel: “The bridge that is referred to in the Sentinel story was a long rickety wooden bridge that allowed the railroad to pass over the Seneca Creek valley. It was later replaced by a steel bridge and finally a viaduct that exists today. The foundations of the earlier bridges can be found in the woods along the creek.”
Over the decades, tales of phantom headlights, shadowy figures on the roadside, and ghostly children pushing cars stalled near the bridges have added to the lore. Some drivers claim to see glowing eyes in the woods, while others feel a chill as if being watched.
Skeptics argue that it’s all a mix of imagination and the unsettling nature of a dark, narrow road through dense forest. Still, the history of strange reports gives Game Preserve Road a lasting place in Montgomery County’s ghost story canon.
So as we do each Halloween season, we’ll leave it to you… is Game Preserve Road truly haunted, or is it just a road made spooky by time, shadow, and storytelling?
