The Witch's Castle, Portland: Forest Park's Haunted Stone Ruin

The Witch’s Castle sits beside Balch Creek on the Lower Macleay Trail, in the Macleay Park section of Forest Park, a few minutes from downtown Portland. It is a stone shell with empty windows and a mossy roofline, the kind of ruin that looks far older than it is. Hikers, photographers and teenagers have made it one of the city’s best-known landmarks, and its nickname comes from a story that is mostly true.

That story begins with a settler named Danford Balch, a hired man named Mortimer Stump, and a 15-year-old girl named Anna. It ends on a gallows in 1859. The building itself came seventy years later. Here is how the pieces fit, what people say they have seen there, and how to get there safely.

The true story behind the Witch's Castle

Danford Balch came to Portland in 1850 with his wife, Mary Jane, and their nine children, and took up a donation land claim of about 346 acres in the hills northwest of the young city. Balch Creek, which runs through Macleay Park, still carries his name.

Balch hired a young man named Mortimer Stump to help clear the land, and Stump lived with the family. He fell for Balch’s eldest daughter, Anna, who was 15; he was 26. Balch refused to let them marry and, by several accounts, threatened to kill Stump if they did. The couple eloped anyway.

In late 1858 the newlyweds met Anna’s parents on the Stark Street ferry across the Willamette. In front of witnesses, Balch shot Stump with a double-barreled shotgun, killing him. One retelling says Mary Jane goaded him on. While awaiting trial, Balch and three other men escaped from the flimsy jail and hid in the woods near his farm until city marshal James Lappeus caught him. He was convicted in August 1859 and hanged on October 17, 1859, before several hundred people. It was the first legal hanging in Portland; some writers call it the first in Oregon.

The witch comes from Balch’s own defense. The story goes that he claimed he had been bewitched by his wife, and so the land, and later the ruin on it, gained its name.

Merchant Donald Macleay gave the land around Balch Creek to the city in 1897, the first true gift of park land in Portland. In 1905 a flume was used to wash parts of the hillsides down Balch Gulch into Guild’s Lake as industrial fill, and a stretch of it later served as a walkway before the trail replaced it.

The stone building is not Balch’s house. According to 1859 Oregon’s Magazine, Ernest Tucker built it starting in 1929 for the Bureau of Parks as a public restroom and storage building, and it was finished in the mid 1930s as a Works Progress Administration project; another account calls it a ranger station. It served hikers until the 1962 Columbus Day Storm broke its water line, which was never repaired. Without a roof or use, it weathered into the ruin you see today.

The ghost stories of the Witch's Castle

Balch and Stump

The legend says the two men still fight on Balch’s old land, and that their struggle plays out around the ruin at midnight. Some versions add Anna, who lived out her life after losing both her husband and her father. There is no record of anyone seeing a ghostly fight, and it is worth remembering that the stone house was built long after both men died.

Lights and shadows

Night visitors describe floating lights in the trees, shadows that move across the stone, and an unpleasant presence inside the walls. A Reed College writer who looked into the stories made a dry point: the activity is said to peak at midnight, which is also when local teenagers and vandals are most active.

Why it feels haunted

The ravine is steep and dark, the creek is loud, and the moss and ferns make the stone look ancient. Add a true story of murder and a public hanging, and it is easy to see why the ruin became Portland’s favorite place to tell ghost stories.

Where to look

• Inside the stone shell: the empty room behind the doorway, where visitors most often describe a sense of being watched.
• Heritage Tree 134: the largest tree in the park, which stands near the Stone House beside the trail.
• The stone stairway beside the ruin: the steps up to the trail above, a classic spot for photos.
• Balch Creek: the stream below the ruin, named for the man whose story gave it a witch.
• The Lower Macleay Trail: the creekside approach through tall firs, best in the last light of the day.

Hiking to the Witch's Castle

The shortest walk is about half a mile from the Upper Macleay parking lot near the Portland Audubon center. The more popular approach is about three quarters of a mile from the Lower Macleay lot at NW 30th Avenue and Upshur Street, following Balch Creek up the Lower Macleay Trail. Both are easy, mostly level forest walks past small waterfalls. Portland Parks lists the main park entrance at NW 29th and Upshur, with an accessible restroom.

Macleay Park is open from 5am to 10pm, so a true midnight visit is not allowed. The trail can be muddy and the stones slippery, and the ruin is often marked with graffiti. Respect the building: climbing on the walls damages it and is dangerous.

If you want to keep going, the trails continue deeper into Forest Park, and Pittock Mansion sits higher in the same West Hills.

• Visiting Free and open to walk to on the Lower Macleay Trail
• Hours and season Park open 5am to 10pm

Tips for your visit

• Go in the late afternoon for the best light and leave before dark.
• Wear shoes with grip; the stone and trail are often wet.
• Park at the Lower Macleay lot and walk up the creek for the best approach.
• Combine it with a visit to Pittock Mansion on the same side of the city.
• Do not climb on the walls.

More haunted places nearby

• Pittock Mansion: a chateau in the West Hills with gentle ghost stories
• The Shanghai Tunnels: Portland’s underground and its legends
• Cathedral Park: screams under the St. Johns Bridge
• Haunted hotels in Portland: the Benson, the Heathman and the White Eagle
• Haunted places in Oregon
• Haunted places in Portland

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Wikipedia: Danford Balch
• Portland Parks and Recreation: Macleay Park
• 1859 Oregon's Magazine: Witch's Castle
• Reed Quest: Haunted Oregon, the Witch's Castle (2024)
• Wikipedia: Balch Creek