Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainCameron Park ravine in Waco where an 1920-documented vigilante hanging legend persists, with visitors reporting boot spurs and apparitions in the trees.
Lindsey Hollow Rd (Cameron Park, between Herring Ave and Baker Lane), Waco, TX 76707
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Cameron Park is a free public park.
Access
Limited Access
Ravine terrain with unpaved paths, uneven ground, and tree cover. Not wheelchair accessible. After dark, bring a flashlight.
Equipment
Photos OK
Vigilante hanging site documented in Waco Daily Times-Herald as early as 1920 · Cameron Park site — one of Waco's major public parks along the Brazos River · Represents frontier-era extrajudicial violence in Central Texas
Cameron Park occupies more than 400 acres of wooded bluff and ravine land along the Brazos and Bosque rivers in western Waco. Lindsey Hollow cuts through the park between Herring Avenue and Baker Lane — a narrow wooded depression with mature trees and a history that precedes the park's formal development.
The Waco Daily Times-Herald documented in 1920 a local tradition holding that the hollow was the site of vigilante hangings in the nineteenth century. Horse thieves — a capital offense treated extrajudicially by frontier Texas communities — were said to have been hanged from the trees along the hollow by residents acting outside any court's authority. The 1920 account is the earliest verified print source for the legend, though the tradition almost certainly predates that publication.
The Waco Tribune-Herald has revisited the hollow's reputation in multiple coverage cycles, reporting on both the documented historical tradition and the ongoing paranormal accounts from visitors. Cameron Park is a heavily used public park, and Lindsey Hollow attracts visitors specifically interested in the site's dark history, particularly after dusk when the tree cover creates a genuine sense of isolation from the surrounding city.
Sources
The most-reported auditory phenomena at Lindsey Hollow are the sound of spurs — the metal rowel spurs associated with working cowboys and the era of horse theft — and screaming with no apparent source. Both accounts predate the paranormal tourism wave of the 2000s and appear in local lore collected by the Baylor Lariat and Waco Tribune as persistent traditions rather than recent inventions.
Visual accounts describe figures among the trees, sometimes described as hanging motionless or swaying, that resolve into nothing when approached or when a light is directed at them. The consistency between the visual reports and the documented execution history of the site gives the accounts a coherence unusual for roadside legends.
The 1920 Waco Daily Times-Herald account is the anchor for the historical claim. The newspaper was documenting a tradition already established enough to be presented as community knowledge, suggesting the vigilante executions and their associated lore date to the 1880s or 1890s.
Visitors walk or drive through the wooded ravine of Cameron Park where Lindsey Hollow Road runs. The documented vigilante legend and associated paranormal accounts — boot spurs, screaming, figures in the trees — are accessed as a self-guided experience on public parkland.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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