Tag Archives: ohio lore

Underwater Body at Oakwood Beach

The following urban legend was performed in the USC Village on April 12th, 2019. The informant grew up in Rocky River, Ohio, which is nearby Oakwood beach. At the end of the pier lays a large, sunken metal tube.  The legend was that earlier generations “used to swim through the tube and the someone got stuck and died inside. Kids would try and see but nobody wanted to swim through [the tube] because you wouldn’t make it without getting attacked by the dead person inside.”

The informant first heard of the tube-lore in fifth grade. “Everyone comes back to Rocky River so there was this 5th grade teacher who went to Rocky River High School. The teacher Mrs. Quigley told us “yeah there’s this tube and when we were younger people used to swim through all the time”. Somewhere in the middle of Mrs. Quigley growing up and the informant reaching 5th grade, someone supposedly died inside.

“The pier was very dangerous because there had been many piers that were built and then sunk. People would jump off but there was sunken cement surrounding the area”

The legend of the dead body underwater was probably a mix of scare tactics from adults to prevent their kids from jumping into the area full of sunken cement and the willingness of young kids to share scary stories.