The landscape at Oakes Farm in Corryton, Tennessee is framed by the Appalachian range's Great Smoky Mountains. The farm is famous for its nationwide Oakes Daylilies mail-order nursery and its family-friendly agri-tourism venture, "The Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch at Oakes Farm," a yearly tourist attraction featuring a maze made out of tall, densely-grown corn plants.
Its latest corn maze-feature as of 2010 is the Trail of Doom. It's an outdoor thrill-attraction reminiscent of the "Children of the Corn" horror films with special effects, strobe lights, actors and other props, designed to scare farm visitors. Just like the regular corn maze, the Trail of Doom grows and changes design each year. Admission tickets in 2010 are $15 for adults and $13 for children aged 10 and below -- but note that they don't recommend the scare for small children.
Oakes Farm
8240 Corryton Rd.
Corryton, TN 37721
865-688-6200
oakesfarm.com/tod/index.html
Calling itself Knoxville's "factory of fear", this company of actors and production designers creates yearly indoor scare-thrill attractions with well-thought out back stories. Frightworks was cited in Wate News for its 2010 creation, "Dream Reavers." It's a simulation of a fictional psychological laboratory called Dream Reavers Sleep Research Labs, where visitors come as volunteers for an experiment. Along the way, the experiment goes wrong and the supernatural stuff of nightmares comes to life.
664 Central Avenue Pike
Knoxville, TN 37912
865-769-7273
frightworks.com/index.html
If you prefer historic haunts, try Chikamauga. This 5,300-acre area was the scene of the last major, bloody Confederate victory over Union forces in the American Civil War, and is now part of the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, which straddles both the states of Tennessee and Georgia.
The American Hauntings site by Whitechapel Press records stories from both rangers and visitors who experienced strange sounds on the park grounds at night, like horses galloping or men shouting or screaming, occasional sightings of ghostly apparitions on horseback or a lady in white. To get to Tennessee's Chickamauga Battlefield, you'll have to approach it via Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia; detailed directions are offered by the park.
P.O. Box 2128
Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia 30742
706-866-9241
nps.gov/chch
