Turner Falls and Collings Castle

Note:  This blog is also very long because it is very pic heavy!


This weekend, we decided to take a trip to Davis, OK and visit Turner Falls.  The Collings Castle is there, and we had heard rumors of it being haunted.  This page has a picture on it that is said to have a ghost in it.  So, we decided to go and look ourselves.

Before getting to Turner Falls, we decided to go into the town of Davis and get something to eat.  We settled on Deb's Burgerland.

The food was good, and the prices were fairly low.  Not to mention, we believe Deb herself was our waitress, and she was very nice.  Afterward, we made the drive into Turner Falls and got a little... lost.  We went too far into the park, and quickly realized that the castle was much closer to the entrance than we thought.

Anyways, we finally found the area for the castle, so we parked and got ready for the day.  We knew there would no only be castle exploring, but also hiking.

Gary, Matt, Tiffany and Danielle, all getting shoes and backpacks to walk... and hike... and CLIMB stairs.

We followed the map given to us at the entrance, and walked along a sidewalk.  First, we found two small buildings.  They might be buildings for people who maintained the castle, but I've also read that it served as a guest house.

Fire pit on the outside.

The inside.  The roof is gone, and the brick fireplace is in disrepair.  And that's a window on the wall, not a ladder.

This was a room off to the left.  We think it was a kitchen.  The room obviously had running water, and there was a box under the sink that showed the building had electricity.

This is the other end of the kitchen.  Possibly was a pantry.  One of the walls was covered in daddy longlegs.

These incredibly steep stairs are to the right of the fireplace outside.  They were STEEP, and as you can tell, the place for your foot was not very wide.  These were pretty tricky for everyone to get up and down.

Stairs to the small building, as well as the roof.

A view from the top.

The inside of the smaller building up there.

Tiffany, Matt, Danielle and Gary.  This is next to the small building, but on the outside.

After visiting the small castle, we decided to walk across the stream.  Why not?  It was tempting.

And once we got over.... we had to cross back again.

And finally, we found the castle.  This sounds like a long journey, but honestly, it's not.  We're just clueless.  Thanks to Mountain Man Brandon, everything was a lot easier to find.

"Based on old English architecture the castle was constructed with native stone and materials in the early '30's by Doctor Ellsworth Collins.  He was a Professor at Oklahoma University.  The buildings served as "The Bar C Ranch" headquarters and for Dr. Collins' summer home."

Once we got there, Matt decided to start things off right.  By looking like a crazy person.  In front of children.

If you're thinking this can only get scarier, your right!

A room off to the side of the big castle.

These stairs are right outside of this room, and they lead to the top, where there's another fireplace. 

The outside of an inside fireplace at the top of the big stairs.

The outside fireplace.

With... runes?

The inside of the lower room.  This is the fireplace that was seen from the outside.

The inside of the top room.  There's a small room behind the fireplace that also exits to the outside, on the left.

There's an older picture of this room here that shows how this room looked earlier.  The paint is different, there's carpet on the floor, the door is on its hinges, and there's lights on the ceiling, showing that this castle also had electricity.

That room also has this tower, which connects the bottom and middle floors, and originally opened on to the top floor.  Now, that exit has been covered with more bars.

Opening to the roof from the tower.

Caddy corner from the tower, this is the chimney from the fireplace in the top room.

The outhouse.  It's locked.  It looks really gross.

**Insert castle and throne joke here**

If you really, really want to, there's some pictures here from when you could go inside the outhouse.

This is the topmost part.  The stairs to get here were horrendous and very steep.  But this is the stable.

This is the other side of the stable.

We climbed up the fence next to the stable and got into the woods.

And again.  This is on an outlook of Turner Falls.

The top of those #&$%ing stairs to get back down.

 We decided to look for a cave after this, but first, Tiffany and I had to take our shoes off and walk through the water.

Tiffany's feet

Danielle's feet

After putting our shoes back on, we came around the bend and found what the park is named for, Turner Falls.

To the left of this was the trail for the cave.

This creek ran alongside the trail.

Why does this look like a lumberjack, Zack Bagans, and a Boy Scout?

The trail crossed the creek and went up a cliff.  But no one listens to me, so we went forward, alongside the creek.

So we ended up here, where Gary fell into the water.

At this point, we decided to climb up the cliff, and Gary, Brandon and Matt got stuck on a rock.  Tiffany and I were completely lost, so we decided to climb down.  Eventually, the guys got off the rock and made it back to the trail with us.  Then we went to where the trail really went.  And then to the cave, which you had to climb up a rope to get to.

By the time all this was over with it was twilight, so we headed back to the castle to investigate.

Unfortunately, we got nothing as far as photos.  For any other evidence, we'll have a follow up post later this week!  Until then, here's some shots of the investigation:

Yep... Matt starts it out scary again.

Brandon acting like Old Man Jenkins.

This is pretty much it.  Most of the other pictures are empty rooms, which have already been posted from daytime shots.  Most of the other ones are really unflattering because we were all sweaty and frizzy haired.

While we were leaving, Tiffany and I found these on the fence in front of the possible guest house:

"WyldAcre 1922"  Is that the address or the year it was built?

So, I'll end this post with some of the great sights we saw at Turner Falls!

Provided without comment.

All the pictures in this post are from me (Danielle), Brandon, and Tiffany.  Thanks guys!