THE GATE

One of the most frightening places in Libertyville, Illinois is the stone structure known as "The Gate." It is off River Road near Independence Grove Forest Preserve.
Just getting to the Gate can be terrifying, River Road is desolate and secluded and you have to go down it about two miles. It is lined by the dense forest on both sides and there are no streetlights. During the summer when it is humid outside, fog comes in from the ponds shrouding the lower parts of the road. The road makes a sharp turn, continues on into the darkness, and then comes to what the residents have christened "The Gate."
The first version of the legend says that the Gate was the entrance to a girl's finishing school in the early 1950s. A quiet and polished place where young women from Chicago's well-to-do families went for a proper education. The tranquillity was devastated one night when the principal had a nervous breakdown and killed four of the students, and then put their heads on the posts of the Gate.

Other tales say that the Gate was an entrance to a summer camp or an asylum, and the killer wasn't always the one in charge. It was either a camp counselor or a lunatic that had escaped from the asylum, went to the summer camp and murdered four children while they slept. Those that think it used to be an asylum say that the killer was a ward attendant who went insane and murdered four of his charges. All of the versions had a common ending, that the residents and officials trying to wipe out what was left of the buildings.
It is still said that the Gate is haunted by those who died there. But few agree on what kinds of occurrences go on there. Some say that in the early morning hours when they visited the Gate they saw blood dripping from the iron supports. Others say that at midnight on the anniversary of the murders, visions of the heads of those killed materialize on the fence posts, their mouths wide open as if screaming. Many other tales are told of apparitions, eerie screams, and unexplainable sounds.
Those who think that nothing happened there say that if any murders had occured it would have been impossible to cover them up. There is the three more recent murders that have been evaded and almost forgotten, which shows how easily the previous murders could have been buried.
They all took place at the Rouse Mansion which was given the name "Murder Mansion" until it was torn down in 2003. In 1980, Bruce Rouse and his wife were murdered in their beds—shot at close range in the face, bashed in the head, and stabbed multiple times in the chest. It was a cold case until 1996 when their son confessed to murdering them for insurance money.
The third murder happened in 1982. This killing finally revealed the history of organized crime that was in the area. At the time, prostitution and illegal gambling—helped by the corrupt sheriff's department—was still widespread. The Rouse mansion had become to site of most of the vice, with the police "watching over" it during the investigation. Instead, they turned it into a den of vice. It all came to an end when Bobby Plumber was murdered. He was beat to death and his body was found in the trunk of his car, parked at a Holiday Inn. After his murder was solved, the residents threw out the corrupt officals and the violence subsided.
Now days it is next to impossible to get any information about the murders or the corrupt officals. Which raises the question: If they have blocked the public from getting any information about the recent murders, could they also be hiding the facts about the murders at the Gate more than a half a century ago?
Some information that was found confirms some of the pieces of the legend. The Gate was once part of an orphanage, the Katherine Dodridge Kreigh Budd Memorial Home for Children, which opened in 1925. It was shut down for unknown reasons in the late 50s and was turned into the St. Francis Boys' Camp. The Camp was closed without explanation.
It is presumed that whatever caused the orphanage to close could be what started the bloody legends of the Gate.

THE GATE