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The legend behind this one took place about one hundred eighty some-odd years ago when a band of Pagan worshipers led by a parson that had been expelled from his order for both his beliefs as well as his unstabale maniacal behavior, came upon a clearing with a creek nearby and built a small settlement which included a stone chapel in the village square that was the center of activity as well as where the parson conducted the ritual services and had ran the entire village with a fearful iron hand for many years...

But things always change, and there was talk of other villages in the area building schools to educate the children, and shops for commerce, and progress for the future...The parson angrily rejected all this, telling his people it brought on nothing but contamination and eventual corruption...HE would provide! HE would decide everyone's destiny...or everything would be laid to ashes! The parson's followers then began to realize what kind of maniac their leader really was, and drew their plans against him in secret...One night, they stormed the chapel and grabbed the struggling parson from out of his bed...Then they tightly bound him in rope, dressed his face up like a clown, blindfolded him, placed him on his horse, cracked a whip upon the horse's back end, and away both of them went - never to return...It is said that the spooked horse ran all night, into a nearby wooded and mountainous area which is now known as Parson Burns State Park, taking itself and its maniacal rider to their deaths off the edge of a 150 foot shear drop which is now called Parson's Leap...Now finished with the parson, the newly-freed people set fire to the chapel until all that remained was the burned-out stone ruins, which they decided to leave standing as a reminder to what can happen when one listens to fools...It still stands today, right in the center of town...

Anyone wanna make a stop? Thay also say the ghost of Parson Burns, still atop his horse, trots around while laughing like a clown...

...Except when the apparition reaches the Leap...Then he SCREAMS! :O

See Also: AU Road Signs - Exit 600...