Est. 1964 · Pennsylvania Fraternal Heritage
Norwin Elks Lodge No. 2313 was chartered on December 13, 1964, with an initial class of more than 100 members. The lodge takes its name from the Norwin area — the combined service zone of the North Huntingdon and Irwin school district that gives the local high school its name. The 22-acre property sits in Manor Borough, Westmoreland County, roughly 20 miles east of Pittsburgh and approximately three miles from Exit 67 of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Local oral tradition recorded in the Norwin Historical Society materials and in regional Pennsylvania-haunted-places writing identifies the property as the former Fletcher place — a farming and food-production operation known locally for jellies and preserves before its closure. Specific archival documentation of the Fletcher family operation has not been located in current research; the family-name association rests primarily on local memory.
The lodge operates a seasonal Terror Barn haunted attraction on the property during October each year, converting one of the historic farm structures into a walk-through experience. The Terror Barn is the lodge's principal public-facing programming. The lodge property itself is a private fraternal facility used by members and their guests.
Sources
- https://www.elks.org/lodges/home.cfm?lodgenumber=2313
- https://www.norwinhistoricalsociety.org/
ApparitionsPhantom footstepsDisembodied screamingPhantom soundsEquipment malfunction
The Norwin Elks folklore is anchored in a 2000s-era account submitted by a former Terror Barn employee and preserved on the Shadowlands aggregator. The account describes three distinct phenomena clusters on the property.
The old Fletcher barn, now used seasonally as the Terror Barn, is associated with reports of a male figure observed walking the rafters above the attraction's torture-rack prop, the sound of cowboy-boot footsteps following workers through the structure, and a piercing scream heard during a late-night close. The submitter described an incident during a commercial shoot in which a radio in one staging room reportedly changed stations and powered itself on and off while crew members were meeting in a different room of the barn. Some elements of the original Shadowlands narrative attribute the activity to a former groundskeeper said to have died on the property; specific documentary corroboration of that death has not been located.
The bar and dining area at the lodge is associated with reports of an indistinct figure seen in the attic space, described variously as a small child. The basement is associated with reports of a dog heard barking when no dog is present on the property and with reports of a maintenance worker who speaks briefly about furnace pipes before vanishing.
These accounts are anonymous oral tradition collected from a single 2000s-era submission. They have not been corroborated by independent paranormal investigation or by Norwin Historical Society documentation. Hauntbound presents them as site folklore rather than verified phenomena.