LA's most documented dark lake — seven suicides in one decade before 1900, weapons pulled from the drained bottom, and Houdini chained beneath its surface
2230 W 6th St, Los Angeles, CA 90057
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public park; free admission
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved paths around the lake; urban public park
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1890 · Opened 1890 as Westlake Park — one of LA's first public parks · Seven documented suicides in the lake within first decade · Hundreds of handguns recovered when lake drained in 1973 and 1975 · Site of Harry Houdini underwater escape stunt · 30 homicides recorded in park in 1990
Westlake Park — renamed MacArthur Park in 1942 to honor General Douglas MacArthur — was established in 1890 as one of Los Angeles's first public parks, centered on an artificial lake. Within the park's first decade, the lake had become the site of at least seven suicides, a pattern of self-destruction documented in LA Magazine's history of the lake and rooted in the combination of easy public access and the anonymity of the urban landscape.
The lake's bottom accumulated more than suicides. When the city drained the lake in 1973 for maintenance, workers recovered hundreds of handguns from the mud. A second draining in 1975 produced similar results. The weapons were not souvenirs from a single event but represented decades of disposal — firearms used in crimes, carried by criminals, or otherwise unwanted and disposed of in a body of water in the middle of the city.
Harry Houdini chose the lake for a publicity stunt during his Los Angeles-area performance career, allowing himself to be shackled and submerged before escaping — a choice that reflected the lake's public visibility and its existing reputation as a place where things went in and did not always come out.
By 1990, the park had become one of the most violent public spaces in the city, with 30 homicides recorded within the park boundaries in that single year alone, according to LA Magazine's historical coverage. The lake's capacity to absorb dark history while continuing to sit at the center of an active public park is the quality that distinguishes it from merely scenic urban water.
Sources
MacArthur Park does not carry specific ghost-sighting accounts in the way a hotel or theater might — no named apparition has been attached to the lake by consistent documentation. What it carries instead is a weight of recorded history that draws dark-tourism interest without requiring elaboration: seven suicides in its first decade, a lake bed that held hundreds of firearms, and a 1990 murder rate that made it one of the most dangerous public spaces in the United States that year.
PBS SoCal's coverage of Los Angeles haunted places notes the Houdini connection and the lake's accumulated dark reputation in the context of the city's most historically fraught public spaces. The lake is not presented as paranormally active in the conventional sense but as a place where the factual record is strange enough to warrant attention.
The building of a strong dark-tourism case here rests on the documented pre-2016 historical record: the nineteenth-century suicides, the weapon retrieval draining operations of the 1970s, and the park's decades as one of the city's most violent addresses. These are matters of municipal and journalistic record, not unverified folklore.
Notable Entities
The lake at MacArthur Park is a public, freely accessible body of water in a busy urban park. The documented historical record of suicides, drownings, and the 1973 and 1975 draining events that surfaced hundreds of discarded firearms makes it unusual among LA's public spaces. The park is active and open day and night.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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