Pritchard Park is a Racine County community park on Ohio Street in Racine, Wisconsin. The 79-acre property includes a 9-acre woodlot, restored wetlands that serve as habitat for spring wildflowers, scenic walking trails, two covered picnic areas, multiple sports fields (soccer, baseball, football, pickleball), a fishing pond, a playground, and the SC Johnson Community Aquatic Center.
The Racine County Veterans Memorial Project was dedicated in 1993 in the section of the park south of the Ohio Street entrance. The park also holds a Wisconsin historical marker, "The Spark," which commemorates the 1873 design and operation of an early self-propelled vehicle by Rev. Dr. J.W. Carhart of Racine.
The park has undergone phased redevelopment in recent years, including additional parking and baseball-diamond reconfiguration.
Sources
- https://www.racinecounty.gov/departments/public-works-and-development-services/parks-department/pritchard-park
- https://awealthofnature.org/parks/pritchard-park/
- https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/eb95275dd49b4047a3f58c709a531851
ApparitionsEVPPhantom voicesDisembodied laughter
Pritchard Park's paranormal lore is thin compared with sites that have layered oral tradition. The Shadowlands-era listing describes a 2008 amateur investigation in which a team set up an EVP recorder near a tree at the edge of the wooded section of the park. After multiple unanswered questions, the question "Would you mind if we came back?" was reportedly followed on the recording by a sustained growl and what investigators characterized as laughter. No Hi8 video recorded simultaneously captured any visible phenomenon.
The Shadowlands report claims a man in black with a pale face approaches visitors near the wooded area, lets out an audible vocal expression, and disappears. No independent newspaper, paranormal-society, or local-historian source corroborates this account, and Hauntbound presents it as anonymous community submission only.
The park itself is a working community park with families, sports activities, and the active Veterans Memorial. The reported phenomena are not part of any organized investigation program at the park, and the park is closed at dusk. Visitors interested in the lore should treat it as Wisconsin paranormal folklore at the thin-evidence end of the spectrum.