HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
North Carolina's Ancient Barren Circle and the Legend That Predates It
Devils Tramping Ground Rd, Bear Creek, NC 27208
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Day visits free. Overnight camping $15/person through the landowner's online booking at theoriginaldevilstrampingground.com or by phone (919) 769-8029. Max 10 campers.
Access
Limited Access
Dirt path approximately 150 feet from gravel pull-off. Wooded trail, uneven ground.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1800 · North Carolina State Folklore · NCpedia Documented Heritage Site · William G. Pomeroy Foundation Marker · Pre-Revolutionary Oral History
The Devil's Tramping Ground occupies a clearing in the pine and hardwood forest of western Chatham County, North Carolina, roughly ten miles east of Siler City near Harper's Crossroads, off State Route 902. The physical feature that defines it is simple: a barren, foot-wide path forming a nearly perfect circle about 40 feet in diameter. Normal vegetation surrounds the ring, and a wiry grass grows inside it. Nothing grows on the path itself.
Written documentation extends to the nineteenth century. WRAL's 2020 review of the record found references in 1882, a 1905 description by G. W. Paschal of a bluish, clayey soil about two inches deep inside the ring, and coverage in the Chatham Record during the 1930s; oral accounts collected by state folklorists reach back before the founding of the United States. In 1946 Dr. I. E. Miles, director of the soil testing division of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, tested samples from the path. The News and Observer reported that November that the soil was sterile, with a very high salt content; NCpedia notes traces of natural salt licks. The tests explained why nothing grows without explaining why the circle formed or why it persists.
Greensboro newspaperman John Harden gave the site statewide fame with The Devil's Tramping Ground and Other North Carolina Mystery Stories, published by UNC Press in 1949. The State Highway Department put up directional signs in 1955. In 2021 the North Carolina Folklife Institute and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation placed a Legends and Lore marker near the site.
Other theories proposed over the years include a Native American gathering place worn by ritual dance and a link to the Roanoke Lost Colony through the word Croatoan. The site is on private land held by the same family for more than a century; the owners ask visitors to book overnight stays and complain of trespassing and litter.
Sources
The legend is consistent across two centuries: the Devil paces the circle at night, thinking up new mischief, and wears the path bare underfoot. Harden's 1949 telling fixed the version most people repeat. Objects placed inside the ring are said to be gone or pushed aside by morning, a detail visitors have tested for generations by anchoring sticks or leaving weighted items on the path. NCpedia records the claim without endorsing it, and no account describes the removal actually being observed.
Dogs brought to the site are said to refuse to cross the bare path. Accounts of this behavior appear independently across several periods of documentation, from early folklore collections to recent visitor reports.
Those who have slept inside the circle describe restless nights: unexplained sounds, physical discomfort, a sense of being watched. The landowner told Chatham Magazine in 2023 that written records from the 1700s called the tract poisoned land and that an 1852 survey rated it worthless; her family has held it for more than a hundred years, and her father staged a music festival there in 1978. The magazine's own visit with a local investigation team recorded elevated EMF readings and a music box that started on its own, neither of which the writer treated as proof of anything.
WRAL's 2020 feature and a 2025 PBS North Carolina segment both note that the 1946 soil tests and later sampling settled the botany without settling the mystery. The barren ring is plainly visible on approach, and that visual fact, more than any single story, has kept the legend alive.
Media Appearances
Walk 150 feet down a dirt path from the pull-off on Devils Tramping Ground Road to reach the 40-foot barren circle where nothing grows on the foot-wide path itself. A historic North Carolina marker stands nearby. Day visits require no booking.
The landowner operates a booking system for overnight camping and paranormal investigation at the circle. Visits are $15 per person, capped at 10 guests per night. Campers report that objects placed within the circle are found outside it by morning. Check-in 2pm; checkout 12pm. Book online at theoriginaldevilstrampingground.com/booking or call (919) 769-8029.
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