Do you remember how the old saying goes: get your kicks on Route 66?
One of the most famous extant elements of Americana today is the historic highway, stretching out miles and miles across state after state, and boasting some of the most interesting and often unusual tourist sites along the way.
Updated 2/10/2020 – So if you’re the type of person who wants to see, say, the world’s tallest bottle of ketchup, or perhaps you’d like to eat in a restaurant where they bring you a seventy-two-ounce steak – which you get for free if you can finish it within an hour – then you might just want to pack up the family and take a road trip this summer.
Of course, you might also want to prepare for some unusual things happening, especially if you happen to pass by what used to be a part of historic Route 66, a place called Foothill Boulevard in Fontana, California.
At first glance, it looks like any other street in any other California town.
It isn’t unusual to see passersby; indeed, it isn’t until the man in the striped shirt with the dog passes by you – and then literally disappears before your eyes – that you realize something might be amiss.
Things To Do In Fontana California: See A Real Ghost
According to local Fontana ghost stories, the man carries a long stick or cane of some sort.
Most reports agree that it’s a riding crop, and that the man is clearly a ghost from a different century.
The striped shirt, those people say, is reminiscent of something one might see in a turn-of-the-century photograph of a young man dressed modestly to go to the beach.
Others, however, have stated that he seems a bit more recent – he just has that modern look about him – and that the stick is just that, some kind of walking stick.
The dog who follows him has been frequently described as a black nondescript dog, something like a mutt with matted fur.
In almost every account, the man and his dog cross the boulevard, disappear, and are seen no more until the next person spots them.
If that was all that ever happened, this would just one of the ho-hum haunted places in Fontana, and you’d be inclined to treat the story with a yawn.
After all, it doesn’t seem like he (or his dog, for that matter) are doing anything that the rest of the pedestrians aren’t doing on any given warm California afternoon.
But there are rumors that the story doesn’t end there.
Things To Do In Fontana California: Run For Your Life
Local accounts may vary some, but they will mostly stay the same.
Visitors from out of town who have seen the apparition, however, have come across a very different version of this otherwise peaceful ghost.
“I had heard the rumors for years,” says one Utah native, who sometimes travels in the area, “but the day that I saw him, he was very different.
He was walking across the street just like they always say he does, but then he stopped, looked right at me, and then pointed at me.
That dog snarled without making a sound, and then charged after me.
I turned and ran, no doubt looking like an idiot to everyone else around me.
I ran eight blocks before I turned around.
And of course, nothing was there.”
Nor is that man alone.
At least five other eyewitnesses have given similar accounts of being chased through the streets, either by the man or his dog, or both.
And in those cases, the stick he’s carrying looks an awful lot like a razor-edged sword.
Whatever era this ghost may hail from, he apparently does not like visitors.
Get Directions To The Location Of The Ghost On Foothill Boulevard
So even after we warned you that the ghost doesn’t like visitors, you still want to check it out?
Well, keep your eyes open, and Click Here To Get Directions To The Location Of The Ghost On Foothill Boulevard.