The lost neighborhood of Lincoln Way
Nestled away at the bottom of a hill in Clairton, the eerie little abandoned neighborhood of Lincoln Way had, in its later years, become an attraction for urban explorers and vandals. Consisting of about 30-40 abandoned homes, speculation on the internet about the reason that the homes were abandoned ran wild, and came to be unfortunately defined by an entirely fabricated and ridiculous story of a "Beast of Lincoln Way" terrorizing the residents.
Horror stories about how pets went missing, there being large claw marks on the trees outside of the homes as proof of the Beast's existence. However, the reality is perhaps more mundane and melancholy. While the history of Lincoln Way is hard to uncover (in part because of the aforementioned monster stories), the first reference to it was in local newspapers dating all the way back to 1910s. According to this excellent and informative piece on Grounded - one of the few recent articles that actually seems to have spoken with former residents to try to present an account based around facts - Lincoln Way was a "vibrant black community" inhabited by "a bustling enclave of large families that relied on each other. The street was home to a church and several stores. A butcher shop supplied meat from livestock raised behind the homes, and gardens and orchards fed the residents." What do you think? Do you believe the monster stories?













