Lions Park sits at 319 Moraine Drive in Elkhart Lake, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin — a small community park providing open space, picnic facilities, and playground equipment. The playground equipment was donated by the Elkhart Lake Lions Club.
The Village of Elkhart Lake maintains the park as part of its community recreation infrastructure. No newspaper records or historical society documentation confirming a fatal childhood accident at the park have been found through web search. The story of a child's death from a fall off the big slide exists as local folklore without independently verified documentary backing.
Sources
- https://elkhartlakewi.gov/community/parks/
- https://www.elkhartlake.com/p/lions-park/
- https://e-clubhouse.org/sites/elkhartlake/
- https://recollectionwisconsin.org/travel-back-in-time/elkhart-lake
Object movementPoltergeist activity
The paranormal reputation of Lions Park is specific to after-dark conditions and to particular pieces of equipment: the swings and merry-go-round.
Local accounts describe both moving on nights when no wind is present, independently of each other and of any visible contact. The merry-go-round, in particular, requires physical momentum to turn — making its unassisted rotation the more difficult phenomenon to attribute to environmental factors.
The explanation offered in local folklore is that a young child fell from the top of the park's large slide and died from the fall. The child is said to have remained at the park, still playing, as evidenced by the moving equipment.
No newspaper records confirming the accident have been found, and the account appears to follow a common pattern of child-death playground folklore found at parks across the Midwest. Whether the moving equipment has been documented by independent observers beyond word-of-mouth accounts is not established.